I hit the pavement for a bike ride early this morning, before the sun had a chance to get burning hot enough to melt me like butter, and pedaled my way slowly around Lake Monona so I wouldn’t be sweating and gasping my way to the finish.

I keep my bike in our garage where it’s safe from the ravages of the encroaching jungle, which most people in Wisconsin aren’t concerned with or even aware of. I snapped this photo of a bicycle left chained to a post too long on Jenifer Street. The owner has made good progress cutting back the vines and undergrowth but still has some work to do to free it from the last grasp of the wilderness. Then, of course, there’ll be a trip to the local bicycle shop where the skill and devotion of trained mechanics may be able to save the noble beast. It’ll be an uphill battle all the way, but it can be won. Don’t let this happen to your bicycle. Make room in your garage to give it the shelter it needs. You’ll thank yourself for it while others are still hacking a path through the elephant grass to get at their bikes.

The best part of my ride around Lake Monona is threading my way along Yahara Place road past the lakeside park there. A stretch of the lakeside about a thousand feet long was set aside for this eye-poppingly beautiful park and for my money it’s one of the gems of Madison, not that my money would be enough to get me into this neighborhood. The usual row of pricey-looking lakefront houses lines the opposite side of Yahara Place but, thankfully, most of them are not oversized, flat-faced trophy homes. The street has the feel of a cozy neighborhood, serene, picturesque and all sorts of other pretty words that would normally pass your lips only if you were reciting a poem by Wordsworth or Longfellow. Every time I ride through this neighborhood I sigh and wish the city of Monona, where I live, had once had the foresight to set aside a few thousand feet of their miles of lakefront so we had a park like this one right down the road, instead of miles of flat-faced, overpriced trophy homes crowded shoulder to shoulder, blocking the view to the lake.

I could only guess what this guy’s story is. He’s standing at the top of a obelisk at the south end of the park. The obelisk sits on a pedestal surrounded by benches and some decorative bushes that could easily be a party hangout for the neighborhood kids … who drink from beer glasses instead of straight from the can. And pack out the cans. And leave the beer glasses. Well, I said it was only a guess.