Yes, intermittently faithful readers, I?ve been spanked by a girl. A 5-year-old. A 5-year-old pixie. A 5-year-old pixie princess wannabe.
Here?s the story ? as much as I can bear to admit.
Our sad tale of woe began last Saturday when Good Wife Norma found a bargain on a? bike for Andreamazing, the aforementioned princess-in-waiting. Our little angel had completely outgrown her tiny first bike. This baby fit her. Fit her great!
Saturday she rode and rode and rode. I?m talking hours back and forth on the sidewalk. At one point she braked to a stop and exclaimed with exasperation, ?I just can NOT stop riding this bike!?
Eventually came the fateful moment when Grandpa had his ill-fated idea.
?Hey, Andrea,? I said toward evening, ?how about if I get out my bike, pump up the tires, load it in the truck with yours and we go riding on the trail tomorrow morning after breakfast.
Her eyes lit up instantly. ?What trail, Papa??
The Beaver Creek Trail, I explained, starts not far from our house, next to the waste water treatment plant.
She was all in.
?Papa, if you forget our bike ride after breakfast I?ll remind you,? she said over Saturday evening?s meal.
Then, early next morning, disaster! A pre-breakfast crash. An impressively scraped knee.
There would be no ride. Not gonna happen, she said.
We negotiated a deal. I?d load the bikes in the truck, she?d bring Grandma?s cinched-down helmet and we?d drive over there for a look.
?If you don?t like what you see we won?t even unload the bikes, we?ll come straight back home. If you like what you see, I?ll unload ?em and we?ll ride.
Drive time? A couple minutes. Decision time? A couple seconds.
I told her we?d go a ways and when she started to get tired we?d come right back. I explained how we couldn?t go too far or she wouldn?t have the strength to get all the way back to the truck.
Off we went, her pedaling like a whirling dervish on her stubby little bike with no gears, me following along on my Diamondback mountain bike with something like 30 gears. I quickly came to appreciate every one.
We rode around curves. We rode up slopes and down again. From behind, Papa coached how to use just enough coaster brake to keep from coasting too fast on the downs and how to hop off and walk it the rest of the way up when the hill is too steep. We rode under some bridges and over others. We turned right at some forks in the trail, left at others ? always at her whim.
At least three times I called her to a halt. Was she tired? Was the helmet hanging half-cocked on her head shredding her left ear? Was the sun in her eyes? The shade too deep? The bugs unbearable? Was she afraid of snakes? Did she need a bathroom? Were her skivvies riding up?
Nope to all of it. And so we pedaled on, all the way to the golf course.
We saw birds and squirrels. She saw a bunny rabbit, but I missed it. Best of all was the mother turtle sharing a log with her baby, only a tiny bit bigger than a quarter. Sharing the ride and that wonderful little turtle with her was as good as it gets. Definitely worth the ache of old, sore legs.
But that?s not the end of this story. After lunch her brother Dominic and his buddy Zach from next door, having heard Andrea gush about her ride, put up a shout to take on the trail themselves.
Surely Andrea?s little legs don?t have enough left to go again, do they? Surely she?ll choose to stay home? Nope, she rode to the golf course again! This time we saw a line of tiny wood duck babies, each one no bigger than my cell phone.
By now I was stunned by this wonderful, energetic little angel, but that doesn?t alter the fact she took me for a ride. Literally. Twice no less!
Here?s what hurts worse than the sore legs, the sweat-drenched shirt, the headache, the sore feet, the sunburn, the violin string calves Monday morning.
The awful truth is the dang bike was ? it was ? it was ? pink. Where do I surrender my manhood? There?s going to be no living with this one.
?
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