Remember the days when you ran out the back door, grabbed your bike and didn't come home until you were hungry?
Remember the feeling of the wind blowing in your face and the breeze created from you riding was enough to keep you cool?
Remember the smells as you rode - the honeysuckle blooms, the wisteria, even the wild onion in the pasture?
We never got tired, my sister and I. We rode all day and never got tired. They was always something new to find while riding, a frog trying to escape our poking and prodding, a snake skin left in the ditch, katydids hiding in the grass, and after a good rain, a turtle slowly crossing the road. There was always something to find that would hold our interest for hours.
We would race like crazy from one field road to the next. It didn't matter the type of bike or even the brand, it was always the strongest legs that won the race. The roads were dirt and there wasn't any concrete for miles. Riding on hard packed dirt and across the grassy yard built the muscles of our legs and strengthened our coordination. A stray clod of mud would throw you slap off a bike or twist the handlebars and jab them right in your stomach.
Mom and Dad didn't have many rules to our bike riding, but we couldn't ride anybody on the handle bars and we couldn't ride on the handle bars. My cousins usually spent a week or two with us in the summer. My sister and my youngest cousin were always getting into something. As the oldest, I was always held responsible for their actions. I was kept really busy during their visits. It was a little after 5:00 one afternoon and I was in the backyard. I heard my sister calling me and told her I would be there in a minute. Running and crying, sis told me I had to come now. I took off, asking as I went what had happened. Sis informed me it didn't matter, I just needed to fix Mike. When I hit the kitchen, I knew there wasn't any fixing Mike. He was skinned from forehead to feet. Blood, mud and grit in every pore, scratch, cut, and all the spaces in between. Again I ask what happened and neither would tell me. I started the cleanup process to access the damage and Sis kept yelling I had to hurry. Then I realized, it was time for Mom to come home. They didn't want to be in trouble and I was suppose to fix it. I also knew I was in a heap of trouble.
Needless to say, I did get Mike clean and patched with no serious wounds detected, but the scratches were everywhere and they would just have to heal. There was no way to hide the damage. And yes, Sis was riding Mike on the handle bars and lost control. They got a tongue lashing and Mom lit into me for letting it happen. Mike was healed before his week was up, much to his chagrin. Mike loved each and every scar he had earned. They were his badge of honor, proof he was truly a little boy. That was the only serious bike accident I can recall and it amounted to a lot of blood from a lot of scratches, but nothing life threatening.
You know it didn't cost anything to ride a bicycle. There was no gas to buy and yeah we had to patch a tire now and again, but that was nothing. We didn't buy fancy bikes, the fancy ones wouldn't make it in our neck of the woods. It was cheap entertainment that offered exercise and education.
I still get the itch to ride a bicycle. We keep bicycles at the house - just in case. I jump on and take off - the knowledge of riding never leaves you - and then I slow down and eventually stop, out of breath with legs twitching. I stand straddle that bicycle and wonder how in the world I will get back to the house. That 450 feet to the house seems like 10 miles. But I slowly make it and wonder what happened? When did I get too old to ride a bicycle?
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