“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” — Attributed to H.G. Wells, heard at a city park bike maintenance class.
The class was so-so. Mainly, I’d’ve liked to have seen more hands-on practice, and the explanation of bike anatomy was goofy and discursive. But I did learn a few things, and the instructor fussed with my front derailleur so that I can shift smoothly into 1st. Yay! Alas, tomorrow it’s supposed to rain.
While I was riding downtown, I was thinking through my childhood history with bicycles, and I finally figured out the timeline of 1982/83, when we moved into the Alameda house, when I got my bike, and when Dad died. And I realized that I got my only childhood bike for Christmas 1982, when I was 8 years old, and that Dad died six weeks later.
Only six weeks, in the winter. (Such as it is in LA…that wasn’t the El Nino year of my childhood, either.) I’ve always had this aura of self-doubt and self-deprecation around my childhood failure to learn to ride a bike. I associated it in my mind with my experiences with special ed gym, which started that year: my awkwardness, bad balance, and so on.
But, wow: six weeks.
I vaguely remember one or two of the weekend sessions, with Dad teaching me, and me flailing going down the driveway, bailing onto the lawn. And then when he died everything went pretty much to hell in a handbasket, the rest of us plunged into a twilit fog of grief.
I have this very crisp memory from maybe the fall or summer of 1982, when I was doing a lot of roller skating, but I was nervous about hills. Our house was on the side of a hill, and so the front walk was at a downward slope. Edith and I would take turns skating up to the top of the walk and then down again, but come down very slowly, using a metal stick (for turning off the water main) as a sort of staff.
One afternoon, or early evening it must have been, Dad walked home from the bus stop after work while Edith and I were engaged in this particular activity. It was my turn, and I was at the top of the walkway, poised to come down. He came up behind me, swiped the pole out of my hand, and gave me a push.
It seemed like a shove at the time, but was probably more of a nudge. I went rolling down the hill, and caught myself on the front steps. I remember being angry, frightened, and exhilarated. But after that, it was really no big deal to skate down the walk on my own, unaided.
In looking back on that time, I can think of that child who needed more than six weeks to learn how to ride a bike more clearly, and the father who I’m sure would’ve like to have given me the way to get there. I feel that fog lifting, 23 years later.