An Unfortunate Bike Ride
Sunday, May 28, 2006
So by Sunday, the family was still camping at Babler (where the Englishs and Silverspoons played on Friday, and where Francis was cut up by a bike incident and where Adam-Age ran over him with his bike).
It reminded Collette of the one day five years before when Diana suggested that they ride the Katy Trail. And so they did, one warm day in July – from somewhere to someplace. OLeif, Diana, Collette, Kitts, Bing, Carrie-Bri, Eve, Joe, Annamaria, and Rose. And as with most bike rides of which Collette had ever heard, it seemed to go quite well in the beginning. They rode past the cornfields and the bluffs, taking turns riding alongside one another. OLeif and Collette talked about Diana’s and Collette’s recent trip to Hungary and missions.
But then there was a slight incident. Carrie-Bri and Eve collided on the course. Collette could not entirely recall how it had happened. But it did. And if Collette recalled better, it happened three times – at least, Eve crashed three times altogether, mostly into the ditch. The mangle was not too poor, however, and with a little blood, they proceeded. Annamaria and Rose led the way for the most part.
But then – poor Bing – yes, poor Bing received a fantastic nosebleed, quite out of the blue. And before they knew what had happened, he was lying on his back in the dust of the baked trail. OLeif took his Bible from his backpack and tore out several blank note pages in the back, which seemed to be their only available method of stopping the blood, aside from dried cornhusks in the fields. Once Bing recovered, they proceeded yet again.
But then Diana found herself about to die from the uncomfortableness of her bike seat. Collette offered to trade her, and found that she had made a most inconvenient trade. She had never sat on a more uncomfortable bike seat, and suffered all the way to Marthasville. The heat was intense, the miles incalculable, and by the time they steamed into Marthasville, they were more than happy to stop for ice cream. Most of them ordered vanilla ice cream filled with peanut butter cups.
Storm clouds tumbled in from the west as poor Bing found himself once again stretched on his back on the deck of the ice cream shop. Moaning in pain, he clutched his legs, suffering from two terrific Charlie-horses. Oddly enough, no one seemed to do much of anything, but sat around in the circle, continuing to eat their ice cream. Collette did not quite know what to say to him, other than to try to get him to stretch out his legs, as he was clutching them to his chest.
“Is he OK?” The ice cream girl leaned out the window, looking rather worried.
“Oh, he’s fine,” Diana waved her off.
Diana was already getting huffed because no one wanted to bike all the way back, with thunderstorms about to break, the sweltering heat, and Bing no longer capable of riding a bike. In the end, they were met by Dad in the great green slug outside of the ice cream shop, (a day that Carrie-Bri had no complaints concerning the lumbering green van). After somehow loading in all of the bikes, they rode mostly silent back home, each fully exhausted. And that was yet another adventure of the summer of 2001.
During the worship service that Sunday morning, Collette was slobbered on all over by little Aidoios-Julep Parnapple who threatened tears between infrequent bouts of sunshine the entire morning – the only infant in the nursery for the hour and a half. Mom and Joe also worked the nursery while Joe praised the Dutch door there, wanting one for his own room. Then, while Mom went back to the house to rejoin Dad, Francis, and Linnea from the campsite, Joe and Wallace went to ride bikes after another brunch at the Hobcoggins. OLeif, Collette, Ben-Hur, Augustus, Rose, and Molly hit Penn Station and Picasso’s before later reconnecting with the boys, plus Curly, at the raggedy tennis court at the apartments. Augustus and Molly had to leave shortly later after water came to remedy the intense heat of the day. And the other boys went swimming at the Hobcoggin’s neighborhood pool while OLeif, Collette, and Rose worked on things at the apartment and made movie plans to see Over the Hedge. It was an active, lazy Sunday afternoon. And OLeif presented Rose with a seven dollar can of smoked sausages as a reward (in lieu of a cantaloupe) for guessing a question correctly, months earlier.