7-A My First Bike Ride. Song: “Old Time R & R”. Photo: a Look at Our Front Yard Hill.

I woke up from a nap to go see my brother and father taking out a brand new bike from out of the box it came in, and I watched them put it together on our driveway. Our driveway happened to be at the top of the hill on our street (photo above). I could see them reading the directions, and adjusting the bike seat and handlebars. I couldn’t read well yet, but it was very interesting watching how they had to read the directions to put it all together. After the bike was all put together, my big brother got on it, and rode right out of our driveway, up over the very top of the street, and right back into the driveway again, stopped, got off, put the kickstand down, and my dad, very emphatically announced, “Now, neither of you are to disturb your parents in any way, and do NOT come into the house under ANY circumstances for one FULL HOUR”. Then dad added (as he always did when issuing nonnegotiable orders), “Is that understood?” Then, our VERY STRICT father went inside, and shut and locked the garage door.

I was always happy to get to share any time together with my big brother, and now, I watched with even more interest while my brother rode in and out of the driveway a few more times. Back he came again, into the driveway. He got off, and while he stood next to his bike, I could see that he was very obviously angry about getting this particular kind of bike. Before he had received his gift, I clearly remember him telling me that he hated the kinds of bikes that don’t have gears. He explained that he only wanted a “racing” bike. After he stood there fuming, and staring at his new bike near the end of the driveway, he laid his bike down next to the huge cardboard bike box. Observing with my thumb still stuck in my mouth from my nap, I walked over and asked if I could ride too (like any brother – little or big – would ask). My big brother was making more adjustments… for me(?). He was looking at the directions, peering at me quizzically, then adjusting some more.

He finally picked up his bike and grabbed onto me saying, “Okay, c’mon”. Before I could even think, he was picking me up onto the bike’s seat, and planting me way up high on that seat. However, I immediately realized that the seat had been extended way too high up. After I had gotten ON it with him eagerly helping me, I quickly began struggling to try to get OFF of it. He was struggling to keep me on while at the same time he was walking the bike fast out toward the street.

I was squirming, and grabbing around his neck and shoulders in the effort to “abort mission”, while he kept walking his bike, and me, out, and down into the street. I quickly discovered that I could barely reach the handle bars, and could only reach one of the pedals (when it was at 12 o’clock high), with the very tip of my right big toe. Regardless, he was quite determined to keep walking with me to the end of the driveway, and downward, while forcefully keeping me on the extra high bike seat.

He suddenly walked faster for the last few steps, making the bike lunge forward and, when I tried to reach for the handlebars, to my surprise and amazement, they fell loose and swung down dangling completely out of my reach. Before experiencing what would have, then, been a very nasty fall from sitting so high up on that bike seat, I slid my hands, walking them backward, and with both hands grabbed around the big bike seat underneath, and held on. And, I wrapped my short legs around the bike’s frame. Running me down those last few feet at the end of our driveway, while giving me an extra shove, caused enough momentum that it made falling off from so high up on that seat not an option. I was only wearing shorts. I had no shirt or shoes on, and didn’t want to fall scraping up my bare legs and knees. So, I hung on for dear life, and went on my first bike ride becauseI had no choice. I saw that my brother had run onto our front yard grass where he crouched (as if hiding in plain sight), and while covering his mouth with one hand, he pointed at me humorously with the other. He was watching me sail down our street while I held on to the bike’s seat with my hands, and my legs were wrapped around the bike’s vertical frame while the bike steered itself down our street’s hill. I rode straight down the middle of our street with the wind in my face, and straight toward our neighborhood’s only intersection and entrance. I was terrorized from having absolutely no control, and the dangling handlebars kept swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Needless to say, I was NOT in a stable bike-riding position!