This weekend started out great — but by the time the Detroit Red Wings finished skating up and down the ice in Calagary (1 a.m., Monday) two ugly feelings festered up and into my consciousness.
I guess I felt some guilt and a little old. Old and guilty, why? Why indeed!
The weekend was good. The weather was warm, there was plenty of sunshine, home-improvement projects did just that (improve the home) and I was able to spend guy-time with the lads, Shamus, 9 and Sean, 7. I took ’em to a local elementary school parking lot so Sean could practice his new favorite thing: Riding a two wheeler. (And I quote: ‘Dad, can we go ride in the parking lot so I can spend some quality time with my bike??)
The time was quality — we three rode, laughed, hooted and hollered. And, then some 20-somethings and their little children rode past the parking lot on their two-wheelers. I smiled at them as they passed, but both mom and dad (both, too, were fit, tan, blond and good-looking — perfect, I guess) didn’t smile back. I swear they looked at me with either scorn, disgust or utter indignation.
Now I am not boasting, but we Rushs aren’t some ragtag, below-average males, draggin? down the American gene-pool. We’re not chopped liver. So, why the look from the Perfects? The only thing I come up with is these parents were upset with me because we three rode our bikes in public without helmets.
Let me say the Stepfords were well helmeted and the kids even wore long-sleeve shirts and long-legged pants. We were wearing, t-shirts, shorts and no helmets, while riding on cement with loose gravel about.
Helmets. The thought of riding my bike with a helmet firmly fastened to my noggin is foreign sounding. I am old enough to have watched the first generation of helmet-wearers reproduce and raise the second generation of helmet-wearers. I’m old enough to remember the No. 1 rule from bike safety class at Bailey Lake Elementary School: When riding on the road, ride against car traffic. When a car is visible, get off the road and onto the gravelly shoulder of the road. To this day, I don’t like riding with auto traffic at my back. I still feel better riding into traffic, being able to see my potential death by car accident.
Where I grew up, in the wild, northeast part of Independence Township, the neighborhood was connected by hilly gravel roads — there were also plenty of deep craters with paths to the bottom. We rode alone and we rode in packs. We rode with reckless abandon. We rode all the time. We crashed, rolled, wiped out and came home with scrapes, cuts, bruises and gravel embedded in our skin. I don’t remember anybody dying or getting a serious head injury.
I know, things were different back then — heck, maybe bike helmets weren’t even invented back in them dark ages. While that may have been true, let me say this: Any kid who donned anything other than a baseball cap (backwards) whilst riding, would have been shunned and singled out as goofy (knit-stocking caps were acceptable if the temperature was below freezing). I shutter to think of what would have happened to the kid who wore a bike helmet.
In February, ABC news guy John Stossel did a report titled, ‘The surprising risks of playing it safe.? He reported that every year in America, 700 people die because of bike accidents. So I reckon because of this fact alone, the boys should wear helmets.
I know as a society we’re past the Darwinian theory of natural selection where the weak become extinct. We’re higher thinkers now. We’ve made it easy so all can survive, not just the smartest, and strongest. That is a really good thing, I guess.
But, I still have reservations about bike helmets. Is it that I don’t want to wussify the boys, or is it because of my own childhood prejudices? Is there something in the back of my head nagging, ‘wear anything other than a baseball cap while riding and you’ll be shunned as goofy??
My question to you, is it old and guilty or guilty of being old and intolerant to new ideas?
Or, as the boys? mom said, ‘Maybe they just looked at you guys because you’re loud.?
Nah, if that was the case, I wouldn’t have had anything to write about.
E-mail Rush: dontrushmedon@charter.net