When Brad and I were little, one of our favorite things in the world was our big wheels. We would ride those things all over the place. These toys had no traction. When you tried to start going super-fast, the front wheel would just spin as you pedaled hard. It made a fun sound, “Shoonk, shoonk, shoonk” with every push on the pedal making it peel out. Eventually it would start moving and getting a little traction, but I remember that we had at least 1 replacement from wearing the entire front tire down to nothing. The traction was really bad. If you were going fast, down a hill, or just tried to turn sharp the front tire would just start sliding. The great thing about big wheels was that the front wheel was huge! You could roll over obstacles that would normally make you crash. The back tires would get stuck, but at least you never got flipped over the handlebars onto your face!

We tried to find anything we could to ride over with those things. We jumped off curbs or found ramps we could jump off. Eventually, we got really good and decided to start riding down stairs! This was trickier than it sounds because on one side was the wall. If your handlebar hit it you had to have a good grip or it would turn you straight into the wall. The other side was worse. If your bar went into the stair railing it would bash your knuckles and maybe even catch, tossing you the rest of the way down. I don’t recall any bad crashes as we went barreling down the steps. It was such a rush bouncing down the stairs and shooting out on the bottom! Once that lost its excitement, we tried to find something even cooler.

The only cooler idea we could come up with was still going down the stairs, but BACKWARDS this time. Oh yeah, how awesome is that?! Nobody really wanted to be the test dummy for this, so eventually I said I would do it. The stairs were wooden (or maybe cement, but I’m pretty sure wood). I backed up the big wheel to the edge of the stairs, took a breath, and headed over the first step. Remember how I said that big front wheel would roll over all kinds of things? Yeah, not so much with the tiny back wheels. As soon as the back wheels dropped on the first step they landed on the step below and quit rolling. I flipped over the back of the big wheel and rolled backwards down half the stairs, smashing my head and everything else against whatever was on the way.

I remember standing halfway down the stairs crying and screaming because everything hurt. I don’t remember who was there; I think Brad was there and I think my mom showed up at some point. I was crying so hard that it made me whistle. Until that time, I had never been able to whistle, so this was a super exciting new thing for me. I kept crying, but then I started smiling, and eventually I was laughing because it was funny that I whistled on accident, and even funnier that it was because I was crying. I don’t know if I had a concussion, but I do know that I whistled, and after that I was able to whistle when I wanted. Oh, and I didn’t ever go backwards down the stairs on a big wheel again. I’m smart like that.

Love,
Fazia