Chainless and Horsey: The Spirit of Defects

The Cannondale Badboy, black matte bike is eleven years old.  At the time of my purchase, I had just signed up for the Northeast AIDS Ride with my then boyfriend and his friends – one half of this couple had a brother who was gay and suffering from the disease.  As for me, I wanted to do the ride for many reasons, one of which was that my mom and stepfather had just returned from a trip to South Africa where the disease was essentially performing genocide on its people.  I also just wanted to see the Northeast via bike.

Forgotten, remains the bike shop somewhere near Murray Hill.  It wasn’t Togo on the Westside, but named after some guy who offloaded to me (at sale price) what has proved to be a defected but loved model.  Loved, first, because my Misguided Angel of a bike needs a swift talking to.  According to Nameless Salesman, the bike was the only little one they had to offer for a young woman of my efficient stature.  Seems I’m short, even for a bike, AND (coincidentally) this was the only lost soul for me – a bike’s version of one of the inhabitants versions of The Island of Misfit Toys.  Thankful here that I didn’t qualify for a huffy with a banana seat and low-arched crossbar.  Not atypical here that I go for the underdog (Under… dog!).

To this day, and despite just recently getting the cassette replaced, Broom Hilda (I just came up with that) has been temperamental.  So much so, that it gets a swift talking to each time I have to change gears going up a hill.  For anyone with a less chatty brain, this would be a fairly brief one-sided conversation, but I have to coax it up hills.  Which is why, when suggested that I switch to a lower gear and I look at you like you have four heads and an, “I know but I can’t,” casts a shadow across my face…  Well, that’s why.  It’s always been like this between me and the bike that I left for ten years in the garage without a good, long decent ride to make it feel alive.

A good thing about my bike is that it doesn’t blame this neglect on my kids.

The cassette is not a music tape player with shiny Hematite ribbon bound up inside it.  It’s the circular disc with sharp notches in it that both resembles a ninja throwing star and is arranged in a cascade of smaller discs that carry the chain and allow it to hop from one gear to the next.  The cassette functions like a pulley, mechanized by my moving legs, until it slips off the imprecise catch of bent and worn down spikes.   When you don’t think it will malfunction, it does.  When you think it will, it won’t.

Taking a mental but circuitous leap, I’m likening it to a horse that I rode when I was a young girl taking lessons at the Flintridge Riding Club in La Canada, California.  Horses could be rented there.  I did not own a filly so I got whichever partly broken pony was available.  I was lucky for that.  Each horse had its own personality, but I only remember the ones that gave me the most grief.  Contrary to all things stupid, animals are spirits with their own needs and insecurities, just like people, only they’re a little less prone to their own destruction and the destruction of their own kind. 

My bike is more like Goose than Amigo.  Amigo was a stubborn chestnut horse easily diverted out of the ring and into a patch of long weeds where he would start eating, completely disregarding what my coach, Izzy, had ordained for that hour after-school lesson.  But Goose had the most disparaging reputation.  Goose was white with little black spots – the Dalmation of horses.  Now, Dalmations don’t have the best of reputations.  I’m sorry to anyone who has a strong affinity for the breed, but it takes a certain level of fearlessness to run into a burning building if you’re an animal that functions on pure instinct.  Humans are the exception here, because they go in armed with preventative gear.  I had to note that out of respect for the firefighters among us all (bowing).  Goose would never save anyone but himself.  Self-preservation was his strong point, which, if you’re a horse means you either bite or don’t bite the hand that feeds you.  This varied for Goose.  The first time I mounted that horse I was scared almost to tears.  But, he behaved so well – a perfect gentleman – as I turned blue almost holding my breath.  As long as I expected him to be a brute, he trotted around that ring and jumped for me with the minimum effort on my part.

However, the second time I rode him, I had my guard down.  The sociopath bucked me off, my booted foot hooked onto the stirrup so that he dragged me for enough time that I quite permanently hurt my low back, sprained my tailbone (for the second time), endured a concussion, sprained a few of my fingers, and had the wind knocked out of me.  Amigo had already quite literally taken my breath away one day when we were poised to jump.  Instead of doing so, he stopped short of his hurdle, and vaulted me out of the saddle so that I landed flat on my back.  But, at least he let me go.  At least I didn’t get a full view of the underside of a male horse as his feet near-trampled me.

It took years for me to figure out that I went home that day with a concussion.  My ears ringing, I could barely hear what my brothers were saying as they informed me that my mom was at work and, “Why couldn’t I hear anything?”  They had to yell at me to get their words into my head.

The lesson here is, “Do not overlook a reputation.”  A good day can give even the most bad-tempered horse a reprieve from pure… jackass.

Then there are the girls who come up with a good idea just once in a while. 

You may be thinking by now, “Why won’t she stop talking?” 

Stay with me.  There is a connection:  a story about the way a defective chain worked to my advantage.

The chain slipped off unexpectedly on its second long ride out in a very long time.  I was having unbridled faith in the Badboy, of black-matte-faded-to-almost-patina-beauty.  I had to get a little assist off the side of the road on my weekend ride, got the chain back on myself, and ascended the (I have no idea what low-grade hill) with quiet verbal cajoling toward the two-wheeled beastie below me.

Repetition in life is notable, amazing and awkward.  The funny thing is that I owned a bike – the one that belonged to my mom, that I obsessively cleaned from decrepit to shiny using the pink, rust-removing goop and a toothbrush so that it looked brand-new.  The chain occasionally fell off of that bike too.

But, here you go.  Remember Potsie?  Yes, of Happy Days.

Well, Anson Williams lived at the near bottom of my long and hilly California street, under the Oak Trees and at the back of the black and white Tudor-style home where I lived for a few years as a child – a home with a pool that had a slide and was next to a rose garden.  A home with a third floor dedicated to one large, red-carpeted room that had a bar, a TV, a sofa, two chairs and a coffee table, all of which served as protection against the lava monster as my brothers and I jumped, teetering on our little feet, from one piece of furniture to the next.  We lived in that home during my parents’ divorce. 

My best friend, Tonya Krosnoff, and I were out riding our bikes, well after two moves away from the place we first met.  At that time in my life, and the time of life of all of my friends, riding bikes meant that you were en route to one friend’s house or the other on your own.  No one set up a play date for you.  You picked up the phone or found someone outside to play with.  You played with your siblings.  You also just got on your bike and took off to a friend’s house.  Parents weren’t accused of neglecting their kids for this.  They were applauded for nurturing the independence of their children.  But, that was a different world and I don’t blame myself or my peers for being reasonably protective.

So, Tonya and I were out nurturing ourselves and having been completely addicted to the HAPPY DAYS reruns of long ago, started talking about the new neighbor who lived at the midpoint between our two homes.  The midpoint was at the bottom of my hill and the swell of another hill that descended into a hill steeper than both of those hills combined. 

We lingered somewhere at the front of his iron-gated home.  We hung out and waited and talked.  And, the one and only creative idea I ever had as a child (that I let anyone know about) was this:  I would remove the chain from my bike, march up to the handsome actor’s door and plead for help to get it fixed.

It worked.

Though, I’m pretty sure it never cemented my cycling passion.  Perhaps it was a lesson in diabolical salesmanship.   

That didn’t stick either.  I seem to forfeit “manipulation” in favor for “hard work and sincerity.”  What did stick, was that I wanted to have some face time with a very cute actor to prove to myself that I wouldn’t let an opportunity slip away, that I was brave, and that  Anson Williams was just a nice, smart and regular guy, despite his on-screen character.  To a chubby girl with bad teeth and glasses, this was a valuable discovery.  My opportunity to meet Shaun Cassidy had slipped through my fingers.  Years before my Potsie meeting, I did cry over “Da, do, run, run…” knowing that I’d never meet the singer.

I’m over all of that.  But, I do want a new bike.  I don’t need to chuck the Badboy - just need help up hills.

Kid-tainment by Kathryn Merrifield

Seems I hit a nerve.  My mommy sent me one of those “Don’t you remember living life as a child of yesteryear, clad in all scrappiness afforded to a real childhood?  You know, when life was, uh… Real?”  This was delivered to my e-mail inbox probably after she read my post about our child-entertainment-centric culture.  This is worthy of a commentary on THE VAN.

So, when I was pregnant with my third child, it was decided that we purchase a van so as to have the access and easy carpool possibilities it affords.  This is much in line with the way things get decided from the eastern side of my family:  the oldest sister (and oldest sibling in the family) decides something, and the kids’ dad, follows suit knowing that said older sister has researched the choice exhaustively.  Why double up efforts when the work has already been done?  Besides, his mother has always had this birth-order-personality-assignment- obsession: the first child is essentially the, uh, precedent-setter, and everyone falls in line. 

Of course, that didn’t happen in my family of origin.  It may have started that way.  My older brother is pretty dominant, but somehow my mother managed to raise three kids with Type A personalities.  This is probably the reason we don’t live too close to each other.  It’s not a lack of love.  It’s essential to our survival as individuals and in life. 

Which brings me back to my mom’s good job at raising us. 

The birth of three young children can correct an adult child’s parenting perception rather sharply.  Before children and soon thereafter, I thought that I was the ultimate fixer and nurturer and source of love for my children.  But, after going through losing my dream my job, three pregnancies (and c-sections) within the span of three years, the death of my father, Luke’s heart and other comparatively minor surgeries, committing myself to rote domesticity and parental perfection, and not writing a word, I found myself depleted, with a back injury and stomach pain that woke me up in the middle of the night to vomiting and other less than exquisite reactions to stress and post-pregnancy food sensitivities I had yet to discover (but soon would).

My all-powerful concept of motherhood was put to shame by the reality that I’m really just a messenger, and if I don’t allow my kids to live and let them be  without trying to fix everything for them, we both suffer.  Me, short term.  Them, long term.  This does not mean that I am not a fierce advocate, a loving mother, a devoted ear, a chameleon in response and as a springboard to three alarmingly divergent personalities and equally different needs, a short-order cook, an event planner…  You know the list, because most of you do the same thing.

I did realize the value of a childhood sans constant entertainment when we were considering the van though.  Memories of the brave trips between La Canada, California to Lake Tahoe in the Suburban or wood-paneled wagon, informed my decision to purchase the van without the DVD player.  Why?  Because, should I have had a DVD player in the Suburban or Cadillac of my childhood transport, I would not have memorized the landscape of the Mojave Desert or been fascinated by lava rock and the porous grit I can still feel on the tips of the fingers to my imagination.  Pumice has got nothing on it. 

Red Rock Canyon.  Lone Pine.  Buffalo Bill’s Barbeque spot.  Beating the crap out of each other in the back seat while my mom drove ten hours, one hand on the wheel and the other swatting blindly in the direction of the bench-style back seat, her eyes on the two-lane road.  (Let’s all take a moment of silence to remember that there was a time when car seats did not exist.)  She made these trips, over and over again, so that she could visit her own parents and take us on a vacation, even though she was a single parent and was always scraping to give us a good life.  There were so many of these trips, that they were cemented in my memory as was the music that carried my imagination while the desert then forested landscape flitted by my window to what was entirely real.

That is what she gave me.  A good life that came with skinned knees and dirty nails and good schools and teaching me the resourcefulness I’d discover after falling flat on my face, and skinning my knees and getting up to push off my Big Wheel again, and slipping and skinning my knees twice more, before I decided to address the slippery seat differently…

Relative to the above, that may or may not make sense.  But, I’ll make sense of that for you later.

Drop-off/ Pick-up by Kathryn Merrifield

Being new to the drop-off/ pick-up line is a bit like being on an episode of Survivor – not so intense and definitely with different intentions only bound up with parental protectiveness and a little bit of fear. My fourth year into the process, I can now spot a new parent – wide-eyed and a bit confused and excited – confused sometimes because the newcomer may have cut someone off or refuses to cut the line even when asked.  They’re not quite sure what they’re doing so they either ask questions or find out via human error.  The point is to try not to collide with the kindergartener you did not see bolt between two cars and into the crosswalk as your front fender just hovered over that first perpendicular white line.

I have a solution to the ubiquitous lower Westchester County issue of drop-off and pick-up procedures that everyone seems to have – not just those of us in small school districts like Rye Neck.  I have spoken with friends in White Plains, Blind Brook and Mamaroneck (Larchmont) subject to the same morning and afternoon chaos, and sometimes, displays of bad human behavior.  Then, there’s the wasted time seated at the wheel of vehicles as engines idle despite the reminder that little lungs are at work trying to breath clean air.  Don’t get me wrong, I like to catch up with my friends, but with the after-school schedules of three children in two elementary schools, it is always cut short by necessity. 

Most schools prohibit bussing within a defined distance from the student’s school.  I learned this through conversations and my learning curve about special education law – when I was looking to transplant one of my children from the public school to a private school because he was not, at the time, receiving the “Individualized Education Plan” promised him.  I learned about his entitlements which included a district-sponsored bus ride and a school that could provide this should our high taxes fail to incentivize their work (budget allocations).

In conversation with a friend with two college-aged daughters, I asked about his experience and opinion of the small but highly-regarded district where his children attended school.   He replied that there were benefits to a small school district but that the negatives outweighed the positive attributes.  The first negative he cited:  drop-off and pick-up procedures.  This resonated with me because this is an issue and it is something brought up every year, as far as I can tell.  This has been an issue for the three wonderful years of my limited involvement in the PTSA.  The organization requires a hefty time-commitment that makes it difficult to participate in a meaningful way as it competes with the already hefty workload of three young children, a writing schedule and a career change.  It is an involvement that, if I had the time, would allow me to fix things differently and with some permanence.  At least, that’s how I think.  I like to fix things, especially since this problem remains a problem that never seems to be solved but creates many committees devoted to a solution.  It has also necessitate curbside parent cops, something more awkward than the hall monitor of yesteryear.  Every year, part of the plan gets patched only to fall apart again.

Like my (anonymous, other) friend said about her child’s school:  “This school has been open since 1966…  and you still haven’t figured it out?”

So, this is my proposal for a lasting solution to drop-off/pick-up insanity:

1)  seek funding for an environmental impact study on the amount of carcinogens released into our fragile earth’s atmosphere during drop-off and pick-up at all schools located within a given school district; 

2)   conduct said environmental study and report data;

3)  seek funding for report that will calculate weekly gas usage per car/household during the drop-off and pick-up time;

4)  allocate school district budget for bussing;

5)  eliminate all “optional” bussing of students who elect to attend private schools, institutions not mandatory to the legal standards of student success (students with Individualized Education Plans or other special needs who receive state funding for private school);

6)  Lobby for tax break/refund from state to reward school district for legitimately solving several real problems at once.

Problems solved:

1)   petroleum consumption lessened;

2)   air pollution lessened;

3)   school-wide inefficient transportation and safety issues abated;

4)   parental insanity and confusion (see above) lessened;

5)   work hours to committees that foster academic, athletic or artistic endeavors and growth increased;

Oh, and more playdates scheduled by kids than parents.  After all, one of the reasons our kids don’t play on the street anymore: too much traffic.

And, that means less spontaneous play.  

And, you all do know that play delivers the most and best happy available.  

And… so does solving a problem for real.