I was around 9 years old when my Mom had a fireworks stand out in front of our house. I don’t remember much about the stand but after it was all said and done, I got a brand new bicycle. It was purple, had a banana seat, a nice white basket with flowers on it. I thought it was beautiful. I rode it very carefully so I wouldn’t mess it up. In retrospect, I probably spent more time pushing the bike rather than riding it. I wasn’t very athletic and hills and rocks weren’t on my personal list of safe riding spots.

I was allowed to ride my bike to the library back then. The basket was so great, it could hold several books at once. Much better than walking and carrying the books back and it allowed me to check out more books at once. Never mind that I still pushed the bike up almost all the small hills.

One day as I was going to the library I had reached a spot where I could coast downhill. It felt so good to rest my legs and feel the wind in my face. I could even practice “no hands” on this particular hill. As my luck would have it, there was a school bus parked on the side of the street. Being me, I did managed to get over far enough to just side swipe the entire side of the bright yellow parked bus on my way down the hill.

Foreshadowing of things to come… 🙂