We didn't have a working bicycle when I was young but there was an old rusted one out back of the barn. The tires were flat and half rotted and the chain was off the sprockets. I asked Dad to fix it up for me at one point and he promised to do so. But I was impatient. One afternoon I pushed the bike up the hill above our house. There was a dirt road there and I hopped on the bike and started down. I had no idea what to expect. It was a wild careening ride, with pieces of rotted tire flying up in my face and me desperately trying to keep my balance so that I wouldn't fall over into the rock strewn dirt of the road.
As I neared the bottom of the hill I began to really panic
because the garden was coming up in front of me and there was a barbed wire
fence around it. The yard fence was to one side of me and the barn to the other. To avoid the fences, I tried to steer
for the barn, hoping to hit the doorway and land in the hay. I didn’t quite
make it. There was a big bramble bush just outside the barn door and some of
our chickens were clucking around there. I hit that bush on the bike and hurled
myself deep into the brambles in an explosion of panic stricken chickens.
After that adventure, Dad got the bike fixed up and taught
me how to ride it. On a flat road and not a hill.
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