Bikes

A bike is such an elegant piece of technology. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they are a recent invention. Maybe it’s a shame that they came along so close to the internal combustion engine—maybe bikes never had the chance to get off the ground.

I have tended to like my bikes very much. The first one I remember I got in California, at Christmas. It was a big black and green dirt bike. I kept it for a few years. When we got to Germany, it was really exotic, so I traded it for an old soccer ball (the best kind—they float when you kick them) and a bow. I saved up some money and bought my next bike, a 12 speed Huffy that I rode all over our part of Germany. A bike was the most important piece of kid technology. You could go anywhere.

I rode that bike throughout high school in Texas and Mississippi. It finally just about fell apart my first year in college. Then I bought an eminently forgettable mountain bike from Wal-Mart.

In 94, I was hit by a drunk-driver. The insurance was trying to juke me, so I got stubborn and instead of buying a car, I bought a bike, a Mongoose cross-bike. I bought it at Moore’s bike shop in Hattiesburg, MS. Tom Moore is a great guy and his shop really shows a love of bikes. A good thing to do: support your local bike shop. Sure, you can get a $70 bike at Wal-Mart, but you can’t trust a $70 bike.

Since I did not need a car, I did not need the paltry settlement they were offering for my car. So I toughed it out for 6 months and they had to offer what I was asking. Sweet. Always good to stick it to the man.

When I left Hattiesburg, I gave my bike back to Moore’s bike shop so he could fix it up to give to someone who couldn’t afford it. That bike took me to work, to the grocery, everywhere. One day, the guys at Physical Plant used a torch to cut thru my lock and used the bucket loader to put my bike on the roof. They always got a kick out of my bike, with its baskets all over the place to carry my stuff. I guess it did look weird, kind of like grandma delivering flowers on a pretty cool bike.

I am thinking about getting a new bike, to keep at The Rock. I am looking for an old-school bike. You know, one of those that doesn’t even have any gears, just a pedal-brake. Something I can put some baskets on to carry all the veggies that will be coming in, something that can get me up and down the streets pretty quick.

But the real impetus of this is that now that the weather is good, it’s great to take the boys riding bikes.

Joseph’s bike won’t be his bike much longer—he is outgrowing it. And he is a real speed-demon. Both boys have become dare-devils, riding off the curbs, taking sharp turns. How long can I keep them from the knowledge of ramps?

We go up to a school down the road. It has huge flat surfaces to ride on. They have made great improvements in their riding. It seemed that before, riding on sidewalks, John especially had trouble. He would get easily frustrated when he couldn’t get it going from a stop on an incline. And you can only imagine the kind of help my frustration added to his is!

But lately, he is really doing well. It’s almost time to take his training wheels off. Which is a huge thing given where he was just two months ago, and he has not ridden the bike much since then. I am not sure what makes the difference. Well, in a way, I do know. A lot of things have picked up for him. He was having a really hard time in school, since about Christmas. He was acting out. He was convinced he could not do anything right—anything that did not turn out, there was something wrong with him. That was hard to watch, hard to hear. Especially hard was knowing that I added to that. Home for us right now really has to be the place where you can recuperate from the world. Because I can say to John and Joe all day long how much I love them, how proud I am of them, and then they go out into a world that can have a wildly different message.

Maybe I have to say it, they think. I am their daddy. And maybe they experience me in the times when it doesn’t look or feel like I am proud. And for little kids who internalize everything, it might feel like they aren’t loved.

So what changed? If you ask John about it, why are big things and little things going so much better—from behavior in school to riding bikes, he will say it’s because Melissa is home. Even if she is weak and sick, she’s there. It doesn’t take them long to trust again, to quit watching her as she goes out the door to the clinic, wondering if she is going to be back tonight or sent back to the hospital.

I guess it makes sense that when they get to the school parking lot, they go to the flag-pole and pray. At first, I thought it was because, as John says, “It’s not a Jesus school” (that is, it’s public). When I asked what they were praying, John said, “it’s in our heart.” But Joe said, “We pray and thank God that Mommy is home.”