Michael Cain
6-24-09
Everyone knows how to ride a bike. Remember learning those first things? In your early years, you remember first learning from your Mom and Dad, later learning from Mrs. Perkins, your first school teacher. Before all that kindergarten learning there came a special Saturday morning bike riding lesson taught by your Aunt;-- An Aunt who is closer to being your peer than your elder.
“You have to start somewhere before the first fall and you have to just figure on getting right back on,” says your Aunt who’s seven years older than you and you’re four.
That shiny, new bike in the garage won’t ride itself. You can’t let it’s bright chrome just sit there. It sparkled in the light. It begged for the light. That bike became a living being, its life dependant on you riding it into the sunshine. You become a passerby of the garage just to admire its excessive wonder, and turn away shamefully full of fear.
Aunt Judy knows how. She volunteers to teach you bike riding. Dad works Saturday and he won’t have time to teach you. All of us kids have the whole weekend to ride, ride, ride. Aunt Judy says that we will ride. See Aunt Judy ride? Ride that bike, Aunt Judy, ride!
The front wheel wobbles terribly because your arms pull one way to correct and pull the other way to overcorrect. In a moment, the whole bike shakes so violently that it throws you to the asphalt. Your knee is bleeding. Tears stream down your face.
“Figure on getting right back on. Get up and get on!”
You can’t recall exactly when Aunt Judy became so demanding. Now she’s your eleven year old nagging mother, now she’s teasing-bratty-cootie-infested girl, now she is transcendent being, now she’s more than human being— she’s become the Supreme Sentry of Spinning, the Grand Pooh-bah of peddling. Her eager coaxing and persistent prodding, all of it dedicated to your success, put you back up on that flashy, chrome bike. What desire for achievement she inspired. She believed in bike riding and she wasn’t about to let you quit. It didn’t matter how difficult this task is; it doesn’t matter how much your scraped forearm bleeds on the street; this one task you must learn—failure is no option.
Hers is a special patience, a most tender and loving guardian angel, and ultimately the prize is your success. You’re four and your most unlikely first great teacher, who got you back on that shiny bicycle that Summer Saturday morning and rides with you all day and you ride all over the neighborhood. You learned getting right back on. You learned bike riding.