Last sum­mer we went to Paris.

I don’t say that to brag. It was part of our visit to my sis­ter and her fam­ily, who live in Belgium.

Any­how, one after­noon, my old­est son Jay and I decided to stroll along the Champs-Elysees, a famous avenue in the city known for its roman­tic cafes and lux­ury spe­cialty shops.

Need­less to say, we didn’t sip cof­fee at a side­walk cafe. How­ever, we thor­oughly enjoyed vis­it­ing a Fiat/Lancia/Alfa Romeo shop/museum. (Jay is next to the won­der­ful Alfa Romeo Mito, a car that sadly won’t be mak­ing it to the USA.)

One sur­real moment was see­ing scores of Chi­nese peo­ple get­ting wed­ding pic­tures taken in front of the Arc de Tri­om­phe.

The point of this story? My roman­tic dream of expe­ri­enc­ing The Champs-Elysees involved a leisurely brunch at one of those cafes. That didn’t hap­pen. What did hap­pen may have been even bet­ter — a fun after­noon with my son that we’ll prob­a­bly both remem­ber for the rest of our lives.

p.s. Heather and I did enjoy a roman­tic evening in Paris. We had dessert at a divey bar, not on the Champs-Elysees.

This motor­cy­cle was made in about 1970 by a Ger­man com­pany, Mam­moth. When I was a kid, I got the book, Motor­cy­cles: Clas­sics and Thor­ough­breds. This lovely machine graced the cover. I love how it’s so ugly that it almost becomes beautiful.

From age three, I was into any­thing that had wheels. I still am. (Some things never change.)

I always thought it would be great fun to have a motor­cy­cle. How­ever, roughly half a life­time ago, I decided the poten­tial for los­ing my life or becom­ing dis­abled wasn’t worth the risk. Then my good friend Gary’s acci­dent con­firmed this decision.

So I’ll stick with my Lotus. (I wish.)

Yes, I won­der that about where you live.

And it’s also my reminder that Shiny Bits of Life can be truly random.