Kid Stuff
I had a willow tree too.
Our big willow. It was maybe thirty feet tall. The branch my swing was attached to was at least twenty feet up there. Grandpa made the seat. Made, beautifully and appropriately of willow. Varnished and buffed. He was an engineer. So he made the swing mechanism simple for a ten year old boy. Two holes drilled at opposite ends of the seat. One rope could hang from the limb and undergird the willow seat.
It was spectacular. The twenty foot drop made every swing a loooong swing. I swung, I swang, I was flying. Until I fell. Seat tilted at the apogee because of the only two holes in the seat and dumped me twenty feet in a second. Oof.
It hurt. Knocked the breath out of me, but not as bad as the time I fell over the wheelbarrow handle. Even when you're young you know degrees of hurt. I didn't want to be banned from swinging. So I went undercover to tell my granddad his design needed a tweak. He drilled more holes. Stability was something he could invest in.
That's the kind of anecdote you'll hear here. Not in order, because I never do. Some stories that don't have endings because I have never believed that life conforms to the conventions of prose. Life just is. So I'm going to tell you of an astonishing early life none of you got to have probably. I'll use subheads to separate my vignettes. Can you live with that? Like this?
Coaster Brakes
English bikes were for girls. Everyone knew that. Front and back clamping brakes. And they looked like sticks welded together. Our bikes looked like Buicks. Faux gas tanks, big fat white walled tires, chrome fenders, and just maybe some plastic strands dripping from the white handholds on the wide handlebars. And coaster brakes.
Great moment on Christmas morning when it showed up next to my sister's three speed English. We didn't need speeds. Going fast was our job.
I keep saying we. Everyone needs a partner in crime. Mine at this age was Andy. He lived up the road, about eight hundred yards away, he wore glasses, looked very earnest, and was a total maniac. So we used my driveway to experiment with coaster brakes.
Do you know how coaster brakes work? You pedal as hard as you can to go as fast as you can, and then when you want to stop you reverse your foot pressure, backward. It works, sort of, but not really. What actually happens is that you skid to a stop in whatever direction you were going in originally and it takes, well, a good long time to stop.
Which is why you make a game of it. My driveway was loose pebbly gravel on a white sand base. It was also pretty long. When Dad wasn't home, you could pump the bike to full speed, jam on the brakes, and start twisting the handlebars. When you came to a stop you had left a visible trail, curved, fishhooked, or, best case, U-shaped.
English Brakes
My Buick bike got stolen. The insurance money got me a red English three speed bike. I rode it into Little Egypt, the spot of wilderness a quarter mile from home.
I learned about English brakes two ways. At the edge of the creek in Little Egypt. Threw myself right over the handlebars at the edge of the creek.
And when I heard from home that Andy had died, on the couch, of a drug overdose.
Brakes. And instant pain.
Our big willow. It was maybe thirty feet tall. The branch my swing was attached to was at least twenty feet up there. Grandpa made the seat. Made, beautifully and appropriately of willow. Varnished and buffed. He was an engineer. So he made the swing mechanism simple for a ten year old boy. Two holes drilled at opposite ends of the seat. One rope could hang from the limb and undergird the willow seat.
It was spectacular. The twenty foot drop made every swing a loooong swing. I swung, I swang, I was flying. Until I fell. Seat tilted at the apogee because of the only two holes in the seat and dumped me twenty feet in a second. Oof.
It hurt. Knocked the breath out of me, but not as bad as the time I fell over the wheelbarrow handle. Even when you're young you know degrees of hurt. I didn't want to be banned from swinging. So I went undercover to tell my granddad his design needed a tweak. He drilled more holes. Stability was something he could invest in.
That's the kind of anecdote you'll hear here. Not in order, because I never do. Some stories that don't have endings because I have never believed that life conforms to the conventions of prose. Life just is. So I'm going to tell you of an astonishing early life none of you got to have probably. I'll use subheads to separate my vignettes. Can you live with that? Like this?
Coaster Brakes
English bikes were for girls. Everyone knew that. Front and back clamping brakes. And they looked like sticks welded together. Our bikes looked like Buicks. Faux gas tanks, big fat white walled tires, chrome fenders, and just maybe some plastic strands dripping from the white handholds on the wide handlebars. And coaster brakes.
Great moment on Christmas morning when it showed up next to my sister's three speed English. We didn't need speeds. Going fast was our job.
I keep saying we. Everyone needs a partner in crime. Mine at this age was Andy. He lived up the road, about eight hundred yards away, he wore glasses, looked very earnest, and was a total maniac. So we used my driveway to experiment with coaster brakes.
Do you know how coaster brakes work? You pedal as hard as you can to go as fast as you can, and then when you want to stop you reverse your foot pressure, backward. It works, sort of, but not really. What actually happens is that you skid to a stop in whatever direction you were going in originally and it takes, well, a good long time to stop.
Which is why you make a game of it. My driveway was loose pebbly gravel on a white sand base. It was also pretty long. When Dad wasn't home, you could pump the bike to full speed, jam on the brakes, and start twisting the handlebars. When you came to a stop you had left a visible trail, curved, fishhooked, or, best case, U-shaped.
English Brakes
My Buick bike got stolen. The insurance money got me a red English three speed bike. I rode it into Little Egypt, the spot of wilderness a quarter mile from home.
I learned about English brakes two ways. At the edge of the creek in Little Egypt. Threw myself right over the handlebars at the edge of the creek.
And when I heard from home that Andy had died, on the couch, of a drug overdose.
Brakes. And instant pain.
Comments
Post a Comment