Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Growing up on the farm my first bicycle is something I remember well. It had hard rubber tires and a bar that was removable, which was important to me as I had short legs even back then and getting on and off my bike could be difficult.

Learning to ride that bike was a task in itself and Dad and I would start at the top of the slopped driveway and head down towards the washhouse. Most tries ended up with me laying twisted and tangled in a heap of metal and arms and legs in the yard, and one trip down in particular I caught my knee on the metal clip that was used to hold on the bar when it was attached, leaving a scar that I carry to this day.

Both of my girls learned to ride quickly, although it was the middle child that ran circles around her big sister for a few months until she got up to speed. Poor Max has been an entirely different story though. He learned to ride his two wheeler with the training wheels on and has gone through a couple sets of them to this day. Try as we might, we couldn’t convince him to ride without them.

We took them off and hid them, he’d just not ride it. We offered him toys, games, money and none of those things were a rich enough reward to the sure death that would come to him from learning to ride. Earlier this summer he and I tried again. Taking it slow and letting him go…watching him go a few feet and then tumble to the ground only to jump up shaking his fist and telling me that it was my fault for pushing him to ride to fast.

So most of the family has quietly hated the training wheels, and just figured that Max was a lot like me and would get around to riding when he got good and ready…he’s very much a man who has his own clock.

This past weekend as I was up on the kitchen roof laying shingles and the kids were down conning Grandma Bev out of money for picking up nails out of the yard I watched quietly as the kids dug out the old bicycles and started riding around. Hannah had Max on the bike and was slowly showing him how to ride. I watched as he rode along with Hannah holding onto the back of the seat on that same gravel driveway that I rode on when I was about his age.

Hannah would let go, and Max would peddle and then after a few feet turn around and see she wasn’t behind him and he would tumble to the ground. After a little more encouragement they tried again, this time, Max not looking around…but riding off, his little legs peddling like crazy as he went back and forth, only falling when he went to turn around. Shouts of joy, and the look of accomplishment on his face made me stop what I was doing and watch quietly. He’s growing up now…learning to do things on his own. He did note that his big sister was a much better teacher than I was.

In life we all go through moments like these with our children. There comes a point where they no longer turn around to see if we are still there, but ride on feeling the pride and joy of knowing they can do it. We sometimes forget in our lives that this lesson really doesn’t end with our kids. We all face times like these. Where we’ve steadied the bike until we aren’t needed anymore. The rider rides on, never looking back at us, and it’s ok in a way I guess. We’ve done our part, played our role and when we are no longer needed we are left standing there in the driveway, a melancholy smile on our faces as we wish them well, and can only hope that they will ride by us again so we can smile and wave and tell them how proud we are of them.

See you next week…remember, we’re all in this together.