Hudson Valley Astrologer

We were only a mile from home, tooling around the neighborhood all day on our Schwinn bicycles, the really cool ones with banana seats. Mine was turquoise blue equipped with all the appropriate regalia to make it even cooler: clothes pins, and baseball cards suspended between the spokes to make a faux motorcycle sound. In the mind of a ten year old that ‘ol bike was all that and then some, a royal chariot not just to get from point A to point B, but to rule the kingdom.

Then it all came crashing down. I met up with a friend who didn’t have his bike with him at one certain rendezvous point, so I volunteered to give him a ride to the playground where he was to be picked up in time for supper. We were approaching the dinner hour and our tour of the kingdom was coming to an end. I suggested he ride on the handle bars but he was too frightened to take the “lookout perch” so I volunteered again, throwing him the keys to the chariot in a sense, but also fulfilling my dare devilish side to accept any challenge someone might throw my way — a real devil may care kind of kid. We started off wonky! He could barely hold the handle bars straight with my weight over the front wheel, and my toes pointed on the front lug nuts for support. Wonky gradually crescendoed into wobbly, when my toe caught a spoke. We were speeding down the hill on Hagen Rd. and the wheels seemed to suddenly get jerked out from beneath us. We hit the tar hard. Seeing the black macadam coming at my face like a meteor from space, I instinctively put my hands out to brace for impact. The force of the fall overwhelmed my small hands, and bent my forearm to the limit. I broke my arm, and just like that my baseball career ended. I’d not play in the championship game later that evening, much less have my face on a baseball card to rattle the spokes of another young boy’s dreams.

HVA

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