That first bike

My first bike quickly resembled a pancake but not in my eyes.

In my eyes, it had red steamers flowing from the handlebars, sparkles along the bright paint on the frame, and a big white horn on the front. I was only six and, knowing my parents’ financial state at the time, none of those things were true.

But it was my first and I had learned to balance on it with only a couple of skinned knees along the way.

I had the bad habit of dropping it on the ground when I was finished riding, usually in the driveway. My father warned me several times that it’d get run over if I kept doing that and I tried. But my six-year-old mind seemed to resist the idea.

One day I came out to find that my bike had been flattened when Dad backed over it with one of his big farm trucks.

I stood there while my brain connected the dots. Leaving the bike on the ground did indeed mean it would get run over.

I learned. I never did that again.

But my years with bikes was not over. In those days, Dad would visit farm auctions in the winter, trolling for bargains. And he often came home with a bargain bike.

Since I was the oldest child, I would get the new bike (“new” only in the sense of never living on our farm before) while my old bike went down the sibling chain.

These auction bikes usually lacked fenders and color. Certainly no streamers flowed from handlebars. One was so big that I had to ride on my tiptoes until I grew some more.

But we rode our bikes daily. Up the lane, over the bumps, into the wind.

I still like bikes. I’ve never had one with streamers or a white horn. But I’ve never ever again left one lying on the ground. I’m ok with plain bikes but still not so crazy about pancake bikes.

Not so ordinary

There were no ordinary days with our youngest at age five.

I was fixing dinner one evening when he wandered into the kitchen.

“What’s that?” he asked, studying the pan on the stove.

“Hamburger patties.”

He tilted his head. “Can I call it sook?”

“Those are still hamburger patties.”

But for dinner that night we had sook on a bun.

Another day we went shopping. He carried five pennies into the store and laid them on a shelf. As we were leaving, he discovered his loss and we had to backtrack in search of his loot. We searched long and hard but could only find four pennies.

“We need to go.” I finally laid the law down.

He went, with a long face. “I’m going to miss that penny.”

Not long after that, he came to me with eyes drooping and mouth downturned. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

Uh-oh.

“I’m sorry, Mom, but I can’t fly.”

How did he figure that out?

We were eating  breakfast when he announced over scrambled eggs, “Do you know what a Gurgler is?”

I had to admit my ignorance.

“They’re a machine that sucks down people and things.”

“Yuck,” I said.

“I hate to tell you this but if you meet one, you’ll die.”

“Oh, no!”

“But it’s OK because they live on the other side of the world.”

“Good.”

“Mom,” he said. “They’re on the movies.” He rolled his eyes while I wondered what movies he’d been watching.

He liked to help me bake so one day we stirred up a batch of muffins using a whisk to mix. Soon the batter stiffened and he lifted the whisk with the muffin ingredients clumped onto it. “Look! I have a lunk!”

He ate the lunk, too, after it baked.

Then came the day when he rushed into the kitchen, his arms flailing and his face red and hot. “Mom! Betsy says I’ll get wigworms if I drink my potty!”

I still can’t get that scenario figured out.

But I’ll bet it wasn’t an ordinary day, either.

Big plans

Our pool table resided in the basement, piled high with boxes of outgrown clothes and books to be donated.

I listed the pool table for sale. That way the boxes could go away.

A young man showed up with his buddy.

I had asked $35 for the pool table even though I paid $25 at a yard sale. It was a slate top pool table and connoisseurs liked that idea.

So this young man examined the slate and did a verbal fist pump. “Slate! I can sell this table anywhere for $200.”

I smiled. I just wanted it out of my basement and wouldn’t mind getting my $25 back.

“Would you take $30 for it?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, I need to come back with a pickup. Could you hold it for me?”

“If you pay today.”

He studied the table and his buddy. Perhaps the $200 loomed before him. “I wonder if we can get it home now.”

So they jumped into the project. I found all the pool balls, including two hiding under the workbench, which I carried to their  dented and rusty old station wagon.

I wondered what the plan was but they didn’t have time for a plan. They bustled around like a hen with newly hatched chicks.

Then they grabbed an end of the table and began pushing.  The air was blue and the guys sweating before they and the table emerged from the house.

Grunting and groaning like a mama pig in labor, they hoisted the pool table onto the top of car.

“We’re good now,” the new buyer assured me.

They tied the table onto the top of the car, running the ropes through the open windows, and then stood for a long moment with their hands on the handle. I’d like to think they were reformulating a new plan. If shimmying through the open windows counted as a new plan, they had one.

They had a plan for big bucks but, after watching their first steps, I think my $30 sale was safer than their $200 dream.

Superstitious?

“I do not understand superstitious people,” declared Carole as she shuffled paperwork on the desk beside mine.

This topic had emerged unbidden from her mind and I looked up from my keyboard. “What do you mean?

“I am amazed at people who trust in horse shoes or are worried about walking under ladders,” she said. “It makes no sense at all.”

“So you’re not superstitious?”

She gave a quick snort. “Of course not. Those things are ridiculous. Think about it. A broken mirror gets you seven years of bad luck. A black cat walks across your path and you’ve got more bad luck. Why not just change paths when you see it? Huh? How about that?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” I really wanted to get back to work.

“Well, it’s totally idiotic,” she said. “All of it. Think about those athletes who don’t change their socks while they are winning. Or scared to death for the whole day on Friday the thirteenth. Did you know some people say that sleeping on a table is bad luck. Crazy, huh?”

“Sleeping on a table might cause a sore back, I suppose” I turned my eyes back to my screen. I had work to do.

“What?” she said, leaning across her desk. “I suppose you’re superstitious.”

“No. I don’t pay any attention to it.” I placed my fingers on the keyboard, ready to begin again.

“Me, either. Except salt, of course.”

“Salt?” She had my attention now. “What about salt?” I said.

“You know. When you spill salt, you have to throw it over your shoulder. You know.”

Well, I didn’t know. But I felt so much better knowing that she wasn’t superstitious.

Stairway surprise

This ugly house had all sorts of surprises. The good ones included finding hardwood floors under the tattered carpet. The bad ones included finding the ceiling collapsed on the floor in the basement bathroom.

Ugly houses are often that way, with surprises at every turn.

Where the paint was chipped, we found pea green underneath. Who’d paint their living room that color? I mean all the walls, not just an accent wall.

As a contrast, the hallway was painted Pepto-Bismol pink.

Surprise!

You get the idea.

The dining room had a small storage door about four feet above the floor which I assumed was a coat closet. I know you’re ahead of me on this one so you already know it wasn’t a coat closet.

Inside was a small chamber with three stairs starting at the front and rising to the back, neatly wrapped in fresh carpet like a furry Christmas gift. No ribbon.

The problem was the stairs filled the compartment, ending at the top.

I’ve seen stairs that were steeper than climbing a 14,000’ mountain. I’ve seen stairs where the paint had long worn away by many trudging feet. I’ve seen stairs that wound around a pole from basement to loft.

But I had never before seen this: the stairway to nowhere.