Like many kids, I got my first two-wheeler for Christmas. Like many kids in New England, I experienced torment because I couldn’t use it until spring! Months, depending on how fierce the winter storms were, were endured, glancing lovingly at the clean three-speed. Dreams of adventures to come. There was the occasional ride in the […]

I got my first bicycle when I was 8 years old and, with it, my first taste of freedom. Of course, at 3, I’d pedaled a tricycle around the backyard. I found it took more energy from my toddler legs to pedal the trike forward than it did to just run to wherever I needed […]

“Kathleen is one decade old.” That’s my older brother Brian talking. What was a decade? “It’s 10 years.” I always learned something from him. And here it was, my 10th birthday, Oct. 11, 1963. We were back from my dad’s tour of duty in Tachikawa, Japan. It was a school day, so as was the […]

I got my first bike for Christmas when I was 10 years old, a three-speed Raleigh, an “English,” not an “American” bike like the ones my friends had. After dinner that day, my dad insisted that we go outside so I could begin learning how to ride it. It was freezing cold and the street […]

My parents taught us to ride bikes early; first a tiny wooden trike in the kitchen, then trikes outside, till on to two-wheelers. A lot of miles were covered, primarily back and forth in the driveway on a quiet street. We walked our bikes from the French army base house, down to the pathway beside […]

Sliding on the pavement across traffic on your shoulder and hip tends to focus one’s attention. I was watching, with a casual detachment, that a Peugeot had failed to run me over as I slid between it and the Mercedes. Across the yellow lines, a large truck rumbled by and I slid through the space […]