Learning to Fly (HOL 112)

House of Laughter 112 There are only a few things I remember about learning to ride a bike when I was a kid. I remember being almost the last kid in my class to learn how to ride a proper bike. I remember the second hand dirt bike that my parents bought for me, spray painted black and bought new, bright yellow bike frame pads to accent it. I remember a hill two houses north of us that gently sloped to our driveway. I remember two particularly bad scraped knees from trying to turn my bike around at 5th avenue. I remember screaming at my father, “I don’t care if you beat me! I’m not riding that bike!” in the middle of the street. I remember a well intentioned but ill informed college student running out of his house threatening to call the police on my father, and my dad telling him to go back inside and mind his own damn business. Ahh the memories. In the karmic sense, I knew that I had it coming when the time came to teach my son how to ride a bike. Experienced parents will give you advice on how to teach a kid to ride a bike and most (excluding my father) have happy memories of watching their children master the seemingly impossible and take their first real steps of freedom and independence. Like anything else with parenting, I listened to many successful methods, and tried to piece together a working plan that fit my own child’s personality. At first I thought it would be easy. A year ago, one of Isaac’s best friends from school lived two doors down. Christopher and Isaac would race their bikes on the sidewalk in front of the house for hours. Then Christopher moved away. I tried removing the pedals and training wheels at the same time (a method which not only works for other children, but is a great way to tear up a bike.) Isaac had lost all interest in learning to ride, and there wasn’t much rush for us to teach him. A few weeks ago, his grandmother threw down the gauntlet. She and her husband were taking Isaac to the beach to camp this summer, but bikes were the only means of transportation at the campground. She would buy Isaac a bike, but he would have to learn how to ride by the summer. Isaac’s friend Claire came over and brought her bike. Isaac tested it out and seemed to really enjoy it (except for its pinkness). We picked out a sporty 20 inch bike at Target and I bought a set of Scwhin Universal training wheels. The parts that came with the Universal training wheel set only marginally fit his bike and only after considerable jerry rigging. I felt hopelessly incompetent as a guy since I was incapable of even installing a set of training wheels on a child’s bike correctly. I vowed to take Isaac out and get as much ride time as possible. I would walk and Isaac would unsteadily ride as far as he could until the ill fitting training wheel caught on something or bent into a position that offered him no support and his balance would slowly tilt to the point where the bike would fall over. Isaac would drift to the right, and I would tell him to turn left. He would lean his body weight the wrong direction while insisting that he WAS turning, and slowly roll towards a row of parked cars. He would get frustrated, I would get frustrated. The training wheels were worthless. It was hopeless. Then Nancy suggested buying a different brand of training wheels that she had seen at Wal-mart. I bought them and after much struggling got them in place, and they actually seemed to fit the bike. I took the boy out and he rode about 10 times better than he had the preceding week. We rode down to the movie theater and made multiple trips to a nearby office park after everyone has gone home. He may have gotten frustrated but he has NEVER given up. I will confess I lost my temper numerous times (Try leaning way over, pushing something heavy uphill while running, and as you finally pick up speed, it slams on it’s brakes.) I ended every riding session by apologizing for yelling and telling him how proud I was of him. We were on a routine walk/ride tonight, and I noticed how hard he was pushing to get up hill. I told him to get off. I raised the seat about two inches. I told him that he would be a little higher, so it might be a little scarier, but it should be much easier. He jumped on….and it was like a switch had flipped. Before I knew it, the kid who that I was pushing for most of the way was now halfway across the office park and picking up speed. I also realized once again that being a parent is a trial and error process. Just because something doesn’t work out the first time does not mean you are a failure. The poetry of the moment was that Isaac and I had struggled and fought and worked and in one magic instant, it all clicked. I watched the boy speed around the corner and I got a lump in my throat when I realized all that it meant when he left me behind. Strength and Honor, Big Matt