Now I know y'all (short for you all) know about Eddy and how we enjoyed a little mischief but you did not know there was one mile of dirt and rock and three hills that separated us. About once a month Cack Harrington would grade the roads which basically spread the rock that had worked its way to the side of the road back onto the road. And that is precisely what made it more difficult to ride a bicycle to Eddy's house especially since there were three hills included in that one mile of rock and dust. In fact I remember when Larry Wayne had a terrible bicycle wreck and he has scun-up something pretty bad. In fact there was gravel buried into his hide/skin. It seemed to take forever for him to heal and I also remember Debbie Sue had a wreck but not as bad as Larry's. Bye the way Debbie and Larry are my sister and brother which you should have known by now. I never did figure out why we used their middle names so much since no one else carried the same name. Anyway the typical avenue of transportation was by bicycle for Eddy and I.
Since Larry Wayne and cousin Bill Snyder, Kenny Kelsey, Glen Jones, Larry Stephens, and Billy Don Head all had bicycles it drove me to want to ride as well. So being the family we were mom and dad told me that if I would save up the money I could buy a bicycle and then would have to learn to ride. Actually Larry did not want me to ride his and Debbie's bike was a girls bike and that just could not do. So once I saved up the money and bought a bike Dad proceeded to teach me how to bike. Now part of the problem for me was that my body was growing faster than most and by the time I was in the 3rd grade I was over 5 foot 2 inches and taller than Miss Shumate, my teacher. I hated being so much bigger than everyone else for my age. They even brought in a high school type chair for me in the first grade because I was so big. OK, OK, so the problem was I had to have a large bike and in fact it was the same bike I needed when I was in high school. If you cannot figure it out there is a physics problem here in that my center of gravity was much higher and it made it much more difficult to learn to ride. Luckily dad figured out a way to help. He put two large fence posts in the ground about 3 or 4 inches apart so i could stand my bike up by placing the back wheel between the posts. This allowed me to crawl on the bike and get my balance then take off. I ate a lot of gravel and dust once I got off the grass where the posts were but after many many tries I was successful.
Once I learned to ride the bike the next challenge was getting over those hills to Eddy's. There was always a reward for making the trip because Vea (Eddy's mom) would generally have something to eat and Eddy and I could figure out something to do, always. You may think it is easy to get up those hills but the first one from my house was a long slow climb and the second one had a really steep grade on the west side going up. Coming off the first hill I would get it going as fast as possible going down the hill so that my momentum would carry me as far as possible up the next hill. The scary part was the gravel was large and you could easily get off course and into the ditch. I was pretty strong and learned to make it every time without stopping and walking my bike up the hill. I can definitely say I never had as bad an accident as Larry and Debbie.
My favorite time on those hills was the time I spotted four bald eagles in one tree just to the north of the road. It was such an amazing sight.
Well what do you learn in the Osage?
- How to ride a bicycle silly
- Physics
- Common sense
- Competition
- Think ahead
- Nothing is risk free and nothing worth doing does not have challenges
- Go for it just like The Little Red Engine Who Could
Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com
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