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arily on display at the entrance to the Park just north of the Plaza gleamed in the late-afternoon sun. Not far from the sculpture, people were assembling with their bicycles. Some of them had attached placards to their bikes bearing messages like "NON-POLLUTER COMMUTER," "I SHARE THE ROAD WITH CARS--WISH THEY'D SHARE BACK," and "PUMP PEDALS, NOT GAS." While the cyclists were getting ready for a ride through the Park, we spoke with Larry Reilly, who is the vice-president of Transportation Alternatives. He is a tall, red-haired man with a red mustache, and as he stood straddling his bike, a ten-speed Zieleman, he told us that the group was trying to get the Parks Department to set aside one lane of each of the Park's drives for nonmotorized use on a permanent basis. Eventually, he said, the group would like to see automobiles banned from Central Park altogether, but since that seemed to be a distant goal, he and his fellow-cyclists were going to ride up the left lane of the East Drive en masse during the rush hour in order to symbolize their more immediate one.

"Till now, T.A.'s main emphasis has been on bicycles, but only because that's where our expertise is," he said. "Now we've begun to coordinate our policies more and more with those of runners and others who want to use the city's streets without having to cope with cars. We're also very much into mixed modes of transportation, and making it easy and safe to switch from one form of transportation to another. For example, we're pushing for better bike-storage racks at train and bus terminals. And we'd like to see bicycle racks built onto the back of buses. I understand that that sort of thing has been done successfully on the West Coast. So far, we've had a lot of cooperation from the city's Department of Transportation and also from Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis. And there's a lot of federal money available for improving bicycle transportation all over the country, if communities would only put it to use."

By this time, about a hundred of demonstrators were changting, "No more cars!" A number of roller skaters had turned up, and they were gliding around the edge of the crowd, as were a few kids who had arrived with skateboards. In the midst of the crowd we spotted a man wearing a red T-shirt printed with the words "LE MONDE A BICYCLETTE." 

As the demonstrators prepared to move up the East Drive, we fell into conversation with a boy who told us that his name was Patrick Murphy, that he was sixteen, that he lived in Queens, that he played on the Bayside football team, that he had a summer job in Manhattan, and that he cycled in to work and back three or four times a week. "It's a round trip of about thirty miles, and I do it even though I don't really have to do it," he said.

Father Flye

FATHER JAMES HAROLD FLYE lives in a house adjoining the church of St. Luke in the Fields, on Hudson Street. He's possibly best known as a correspondent of James Agee (the introduction to a French edition of Agee's "A Death in the Family" describes him as "le pere Flye, le pasteur episcopalien qui fut l'ami et le confidant d'Agee"), and most would place him at St. Andrew's School, on the Cumberland plateau, two miles from Sewanee, Tennessee, where he met Agee, and where he taught for thirty-six years. The fact is that Father Flye left St. Andrew's a quarter century ago. Even before that, in the early forties, he began spending summers on duty at St. Luke's, and, except for four years in Wichita, a year in Omaha, and an odd summer in Europe, his relations with St. Luke's have been regular ever since. Father Flye still celebrates Mass every Friday morning at seven-thirty, and he maintains an informal ministry in his nook in the church's house. We've taken advantage of his hospitality there for several years.

On a recent visit, we received a buoyant welcome, as usual. Father Flye is a small, modest man, kind and quiet and full of thoughts, yet he hums with an energy that belies his stoop and shuffle. once in place to talk--often, most comfortably, on a cushioned desk chair--he is a lively host, inquiring about books read, work in progress, and general well-being. He prefers not to account for his own activities, because he doesn't think highly of them. He will admit that he reads and, when he "has it right" (as he did in "An Article of Faith," reprinted in the 

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Harvard Advocate collection "First Flowering"), he writes. He claims to "spend a lot of time rummaging," and we have seen why--his quarters are a arecord of a bountiful past. A couch is papered with fresh and yellowed news clips; Nabisco cartons and wicker boxes brim with letters posted to him as early as 1899. His desk top holds tools of his underplayed trade (a Remington East-Riter, for instance) and also what Father Flye calls "scratchings." These are random notes and queries penned in black ink which reflect conviction, doubt, and a lighter turn of mind. "'Intolerance'--Is one religion as good as another?" "Death Penalty: a moral standard based on what?" "Combien sont ces six saucissons-ci? Ces six saucissons-ci sont six sous." Father Flye recited the last in a sibilant rush. Then he sighed in delight and said "Oh, French!" and "Goodness gracious!"--laughing almost as irrepressibly as he had laughed when, on an earlier visit, we ventured to ask his age. Then he had pretended to do some figuring and had announced, in a surprised tone, "Ninety-four. You know, I'm incredibly old!"

The first two scratchings suggest Father Flye's pensive side, which he shared in a conversation about two books on a table next to his reading chair. "'Lives of a Cell,' by Dr. Lewis Thomas, I read hospitably, although I don't think I've read a book with so many words I didn't know. Oh, the mystery with which we're faced! How in the world did those two gases oxygen and nitrogen get together to be breathed by human beings? How in the world could life come out in the tiniest cell? I have a continuing sense of wonder and amazement. One can think of processes, but back of it all? If one thinks of the Big Bang that Carl Sagan writes about in 'The Dragons of Eden,' what was it that banged? If one contemplates matter itself, one is faced with the dilemma that one can't think of matter as having or not having a beginning. Just thinking about these things, I'm floored. I don't mean to preach. I can't conceive of life as always being here. On the other hand, I can't conceive of its beginning." 

One the other side of Father Flye's reading chair were piled five books of worship: a 1928 edition of the "Missel Quotidien et Vesperal," in French; 1945 and 1977 editions of "The Book of Common Prayer;" a 1946 edition of "The People's Anglican Missal;" and an undated King James version of the Bible. Faithful to his vocation, Father Flye reads prayers morning and evening and chants Biblical chapters