Here's a grab bag of thoughts and stories from this week:
Last weekend I went elk hunting with my dad and my brother. I got a late start and didn't turn off onto the dirt road to the mountains until it was dark. As I was merging onto a dirt road and crossing a cattle guard, I saw something out of the corner of my headlights. It was a small animal and looked like it was fairly long. It was waddling along the side of the road like an aimless vagrant. I turned the car towards it, so that the headlights were shining directly on it, so that I could identify what this was. Turns out it was two animals. a pair of, how should I say... amorous porcupines. I'm not sure how that works. "Hmm..." I muttered to myself and continued on.
I think everyone has their own super power and their own arch-nemesis. My arch nemesis is Donny Osmond. I watched him on Dancing with the Stars. For reasons I can't explain, he embarrasses me... and... does he sort of look like a pigeon? Maybe that is it.
I was telling this story to my brother and he had never heard it. It's a good one, and unlike most of my other stories is all true and requires no extra relish or spice:
If you were driving into the culda-sac where I grew up in at the top of 200 North in Farmington, my house would be situated on the right side. On the left side, there was our neighbor's house. The property our house was set on, was about 5 feet higher than our neighbors. separating the houses was a gentle slope across the paved road. As kids do, I was engaged a competition to see who could make the longest skid mark on their bikes. I rode The most horrible yellow bike with a big, black banana seat. The steel on this bike seemed to be as thick as my arm and weighed something near what a Buick sedan might have. It was clunky, awkward, trashed and old. I hated it, but it was also my bike. A source of freedom, camaraderie and sport. I hated it, yet I loved it. The chain had an annoying habit of falling off without warning. It was slightly too large for me and if I dismounted with both feet, I came to a rest on my pinto beans instead of my feet. All of that extra weight played into my favor as it could lay the longest skid marks in town.
On this day I found within myself an extra helping of determination, energy and an evil plan to put to rest this banter and show once and for all who was the king o' the skid mark. I opened our garage door, requested the neighbors open theirs, and placing my back wheel on the back wall of our garage I pointed my battle hardened war machine towards the landing strip. I stood up and smashed the left pedal down as hard as I could, the bike lurched under my weight. I followed by mashing down with my right foot, then my left... right, left, right, faster, faster, FASTER! The pedalling grew so rapid I had to sit down on the seat and keep pumping my legs as fast as I could. The wind in my ears grew to a deafening roar. It was like the howling applause of a hundred thousand people come to watch me! I was blasting down the incline at unheard of speeds, this was sure to be my finest moment. This was it! The moment I was brought into this world for!
Disaster has a sinister sense of humor. my pedal strokes suddenly became easy. Too easy. Failure of the most tragic nature had struck me. The chain! HOLY CRAP THE CHAIN!!! Not now! NOT NOW!
Facing tragic moments of survival a brain can calculate nearly impossible outcomes, 3D renderings and damage control in only a few nano-seconds. I played them all out in my head and imediately relinquished all hope of accelerating and considered my alternatives for deceleration. It took maybe a full second for my body to realize there was no exit plan. We were on this crazy train - destination Painsville, with no stops. It was now time to minimize collateral damage. I frantically tested my route and discovered I had sweeping array of points of impact all located on the back wall of my neighbor's garage. I chose a spot on the wall that I seemed to look the softest and set my aim, braced myself and prepared for impact. From that moment on, time sped back up to normal time.
I remember picking myself up off the floor. My crotch-region painfully pounded like it was detonating with every heart beat. I had apparently taken a major collision in that area by the handle bar stem. Next, my head, body and arms slammed into the wall. I slowly picked myself up and stood my bike up. realizing yet another punchline from disaster's joke. I noted that my bike was broken nearly in half. The top tube had snapped completely free from the stem and the down tube was hanging on to the bottom bracket by a small sliver of steel. "Sweet! I can get a new bike!" I thought. I don't remember even being in pain anymore by the time I got home. I ran in and excitedly told my mom that I needed a new bike... I busted my old stupid bike!
She hauled it off to the welding shop that was a few blocks away and within a few days I had my crappy old bike back again. Never since then have I been so disappointed in the old adage "Fix it up, use it up, or do without."
Hello?…Hello?…Is this thing on?
9 years ago
6 comments:
I still laugh everytime I think about that story (which I have done several times since you told it to me). To a seven year old kid your bike is your first taste of freedom (even if it was my old yellow, banana seated P.O.S.)
This brought back my own lovely memories of a trip to Painsville on my bike. One that ended with me in the bed of truck.
ahh....childhood.
Sterling... did you know that my bike (which was a hand-me-down from Tami.... which Dave had pushed down hills without a rider just to see it smash at the bottom) also broke in half while I was riding it? Did you know that mom also took my bike to be welded back together. Aaahhh my dreams of a fancy new bike where also crushed. Dang frugal parents!
That was one of your funniest stories... I was crying!
Great story. I was headed down a hill once on an old POS bike that also had a banana seat and the chain fell off all the time. This one was black. My brother's dog Cally ran next to me. I petaled backwards to slow down and that is when the chain came off. That is when the dog did an amazing thing. it ran in front of the bike and slowed down. I hit her butt and slowed down. she did this 3 more times until I was slowed down enough for me to jump off and land safety on some one's lawn. That was a good dog.
Sterling, you must have got a new bike not too long after this. I can remember about a week before school started when I was in 7th grade (so you would have been 7 going on 8). We were out in front of the house there in Farmington, timing each other on your silver and red Huffy (that I remember was a pretty cool bike). We had a course set up and a stopwatch and would time each other. We started with the back tire of the bike against the steps to the front door, then down the sidewalk and jumped off the curb into the cul-de-sac, around the island in the middle and then the finish line was where the asphalt ended and the cement of the driveway started. Being 5 years older I of course was setting the better times and of course (being the big brother) I was probably rubbing it in some. As I remember it, you had just set a pretty good time, something like 17 seconds. So now it was my time and I just really wanted to crush your time. I flew down the sidewalk, caught some good air off the curb and headed down the incline on the East side of the island. I rounded the first corner and really started to pump the pedals hard, I was flying now and as I approached the second corner that headed back up the incline into the final stretch I leaned in hard and kept pumping for all I had. That was when, as fate or whatever you want to call it would strike. A quarter century later I still bear the not yet faded scars of the wreck that would follow. In my extreme haste, I forgot that you cannot lean into a hard corner and still pump the pedals at the same time. Well not too far into the corner the inside pedal made contact with the asphalt and sent me flying. It all happened pretty fast and i do not recall much of the impact. I do however remember the major road rash on my arm, elbow, knee and leg. Large portions of my skin had been belt sanded from my body. I picked myself up, dazed and confused and with that naucious feeling you have when you wreck real bad. I picked the bike up (not so much because I cared about the bike so much, but more to use as a crutch to help me limp home). I made my way up to towards the house just wantin to get inside and see my mommy. As I approached the driveway I finally noticed that you were still standing there watching me approach. You would look at me, then glance down at the stopwatch and then with a big grin back up at me. As I crossed the finish line you gleefully gloated "HA!!! 43 SECONDS!!!" I guess I deserved it.
Yep, I got a new bike for christmas that year. It was a chrome ST-RACING bike with red ST-5000 letters on the down tube... and PADS! It had pads! It even had pads on the handlebar clamp. I fully appreciated those pads.
That is almost exactly how I remember the 43 second story. I also remember you needed a really big bandage for those scrapes. a gauze pad larger than any other that I had ever seen. I didn't know where it came from and it looked like a strange insole replacement and had adhesive on the back side for reasons I could understand. Poor Shawn.
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