After reading a post at Word Play yesterday, it reminded me of an incident from my childhood involving a bike too.
When I was about 6 years old, I had a beautiful blue 2 wheeler that I rode everywhere I wanted to go. Most of my friends also had 2 wheelers & since we were in a fairly new development, we had lots of room for riding on the bays & avenues of our neighborhood.  One of my good friends Donna had a 2 wheeler with balloon tires while all the rest of us had regular tires. On a sunny spring day, Donna & I decided we would trade bikes for a while so both of us could get the experience of different tires.

Donna lived kitty-corner behind my house on a bay & we went off riding on the bay.  We pedaled faster & faster.  Soon we were racing & agreed the finish line would be Donna’s driveway just around the next corner.  Donna was riding in the middle of the road & I was riding closer to the curb.  As we rounded the corner, Donna’s bike skidded on a patch of sand leftover from the winter streets.  I could feel the bike starting to slide out from under me & there was nothing I could do about it!  The last thing I remember was crying out.

The next thing I knew I was looking up into the face of Mike our paper boy (the boy I had such a crush on, who wouldn’t even consider looking at me because he was 14 & I was only 6) as he was carrying me down the street.  All the young girls in our neighborhood had a crush on Mike & I’m sure Donna was so jealous, watching Mike carrying me.  If I hadn’t just regained consciousness I think I would have swooned.  All too soon, Donna’s dad appeared & took me from Mike’s arms.

Donna’s dad carried me through his garage, into his back yard & to the 6 foot fence dividing our neighbor’s property from his.  My dad was there & I was passed over the fence & Dad rushed me into our house.  I must have passed out again because the next thing I knew my Dad was trying to get me onto my mother’s lap in the front seat of our Volkswagen Beetle.  My mother was crying & holding a cloth to my forehead.  I gathered from their conversation we were on our way to the doctor’s office.

The next thing I knew I was on the doctor’s examination table with a very big needle headed for my head.  I ended up with stitches through my eyebrow, holding my head together (or so I felt) & a concussion.  On doctor’s orders, I was to be kept awake for as long as possible & when I went to bed that night I needed to be woken every hour & checked.  I know I didn’t enjoy the next 24 hours & I can only imagine what my parents went through.  I was supposed to go back about a week later & have the stitches removed, but I picked them out in my sleep 2 days later.  You should have heard my mother scream when she came in to wake me up & my pillow & head was covered in blood!

So, I ended up with a scar right through my left eyebrow & 12 years later when I was in a motorcycle accident, it was discovered I had also broken my pelvis at the time of my bike accident which had healed incorrectly.

But for the 3 minutes I was in Mike’s arms, I would say it was all worth it!