Mom Passes Out

Last week I talked about my bicycle trying to kill me. This wasn't unusual at all for me. I spent a lot of time in doctors' offices and emergency rooms as a child. I suppose it was a reflection of my grace, balance, and athleticism – I was a klutz. What I didn't mention was Mom's routine reaction to me trying to murder myself.

I was six years old, and it was a summer day like any other. I was at my friends' house down the street; but, for some reason, their mother had kicked us out of the house and insisted we play in the back yard. We cast around for something intelligent to do and settled on the plan of running around the tent their father had erected as a test before going camping. We had been told not to go into the tent, and not to touch it; so, of course, it became the central focus of our lives. In 1969, no one used wimpy, plastic tent pegs. Oh, no. Tent pegs in that day were good, solid iron a half-inch wide that would survive the nuclear holocaust when the Russians attacked. These, by custom, were pounded into the ground so that four or five inches were left above ground. That way, you could get a good grip on them when it was time to decamp.

We decided it would be a wonderful idea to run as fast as possible around the tent, jumping the tent pegs like hurdles. The one who could do this the fastest won, and devil take the hindmost. It was a lot of fun! I had a great time until my bare foot caught one of the spikes. I ripped a huge gash in the top of the foot and then headed for home. As I walked home, I turned around and looked at the blood in the gutter. I remember thinking how strange it was that blood was running in the gutter instead of rain; but my musings didn't last long because I needed to get home.

When Mom saw me, she yelled at me to go back out on the porch. “Don't bleed on the floor!” was the memorable phrase of the day. She got her keys, and wrapped my foot in a towel. She put me in the car and drove me to the doctor's office, where she held me down while they stitched me up. Then she drove me home and cleaned up all of the blood that I had gotten everywhere. When I had been taken care of and everything had been done that needed to be done, she went to her room, laid down on her bed, and fainted.

This became a theme in our family. Mom always took care of us and cleaned up the blood; then she fainted. 

I Believe I Can Fly

It took forever to get rid of those training wheels.

When I was five or six years old I believed, like Calvin, that the stupid bike was trying to kill me. Saying that I'm not graceful, or imbued with a natural sense of balance, is like saying that the most distant galaxy is a long way from the earth. In addition to my clumsiness, I was deterred from losing the training wheels by my highly-developed sense of self-preservation. The ground is hard, and concrete is even harder. In addition, asphalt is rough and will strip the skin off of your bones in an instant. Face it - the Earth wants to kill you and eat you.

Dad tried. Heaven knows he tried. He took the training wheels off and gave me a push. He ran beside me while holding on. He shouted encouragement. On a good day day I could make it most of the way across the yard; but I always made him put the training wheels back on because I simply couldn't get the hang of it. He and Mom encouraged me, bribed me, and did everything else they could to make me push through my fears and brave the terrors of a carnivorous earth; but it was no use.

In the end, the taunts and jeers of my friends pushed me to it. I simply couldn't let them keep calling me a baby because they had their training wheels off and I didn't; so I had Dad take the training wheels off. It was wonderful - I could ride my bike! I was free to ride up and down the street with the wind blowing through my hair. No longer a baby, I was an undisputed Big Kid and the master of all things with two wheels. I couldn't understand why I hadn't done this sooner.

A week or so later, I was riding up the street enjoying the freedom that a bicycle gives when, for no reason that I could detect, the Earth grabbed my front wheel and threw me over the handlebars to land face first on the asphalt. I broke my nose, and the Earth ate most of my face.

I told you that stupid bike was trying to kill me.