A Bicycle Ride Down Memory Lane
Rummaging through my memories to recall an adventure and to find the most vivid. I blow the dust off of one, the one that I took a high-speed journey down a rocky hill. The summer began with a journey to the house that used to be my grandparents, but was passed to my mother in the passing of her father. My father, and two of my sisters, my sisters and I being the youngest of the gaggle of siblings that is my family decided to take roost in the house for a summer of fishing and play. We paid our way through the summer by tying flies and selling them to a local fishing shop. My dad became inspired by a recent movie, “A River Runs Through it,” and he took on the craft to foster his love for fishing. Following suit we all learned to tie small artificial insects made of various feathers and animal hairs. The time spent between providing child labor, fishing was defending and creating alliances with my cousins, we swam, rode bikes, generally raised cane.

The greatest mission for my summer was a steep hill where a small group of my cousins lived. I watched like a hawk as they glided down the hill when they would visit or to commune at the swimming hole in the river. I kept the cautious eye them for the majority of the summer, but didn’t dare embark on such a challenge till my confidence rose and my generally goofy balance was less so. Throughout the summer I wanted to navigate my bike up the hill but the thought of pushing up a bike was inefficient.

The moment of truth came one day when my dad met my uncle to repair a fence I piped up and asked him to take the bike and me up. Agreeing to my request we went, assured that I would come out unscathed. Unscathed, I wish turned out so. I sat atop the hill mentally preparing myself before pushing off to what I thought would be glory. Down I went, the thrill was intense as my speed increased and I saw a blur of trees and rocks. Approaching the bottom I became frightened, “I am going too fast!” said in the confines of my mind. The road became bumpier with a thicker layer of gravel put toward the bottom. Still going at a ridiculous speed I have never or yet to experience on a bicycle I tried to turn and then braked. Holding tightly to my bike jackknifed and I became airborne. My eyes closed. I opened my eyes to see I under the bike and surrounded by gravel. I knew I was hurt, but didn’t realize my head was bleeding.

Blood was rushing down my temples; I stood up and walked briskly to my summer residence. I walked in the house and my sisters and father quickly panicked and directed me to the restroom to cleanse my wounds. Firstly, some of the embedded gravel was removed from my head and washed simply with water. A lack of medical supplies in the house was common, so my dad grabbed the only bottle of peroxide and began to poor it on my bleeding scalp. As my father poured it on my head, a thought came bursting forward, “that is going to turn my hair orange!” I yelled, “Stop!” The thought only arose, because of the rumor mill that was my older sister and mother who would judge women’s poor dye jobs and said it was done with peroxide. What child thinks of that? Me.

My hair wasn’t dyed a horrid orange. The hair color that I see with great frequency in many young women and the color that my mom and sister spoke of when I was younger. I never shaved or buzzed my hair for fear of finding a head scarred with gravel. My adventure didn’t end with a great triumph, but it is one of the clearest that I could dig out of the large storage bin which is my mind. It was a thrill, though it was quick lived. A great lesson was learned; use your brakes. In hindsight I found out that my cousins who glided down that hill, kept the brakes held the entire way down the hill. They did not have to be concerned with a high-speed stop.