Sometimes I wonder how many of us survived through our youths. Thank goodness Kyle has made it through this!

Well, I seriously lead and have led, a sheltered life! Thank God your young friend will recover.

Old Schwinn, ca. 1960, one speed ultra-heavy girl’s bike. Ten years later, the road alongside the hill behind the country club’s golf course, angling down gently from one minor intersection to a less-minor one. Me on my bike, feet off the pedals and sometimes hands off the handlebars, coasting and hoping for a green light and no traffic at the curve at the bottom, because I had to be going 40mph.

Don’t tell my kids, OK?

You are so right – life threatening events do often lead to life altering and enlightened ways of being.

Oh my goodness. How awful for everyone. The poor family. Many heart felt prayers are being said for Kyle.

He will grow through this. I learned so much about myself when I was down and out with my back…

He is lucky…and yes, we ALL are lucky, to have survived our childhoods. My cousin and I used to walk across low-level dams, which are now being torn apart by the Army Corp. of Engineers here in Ohio. They call them “death traps”. We were so crazy!

I was the only one in the family ever to ride one of those old balloon-tired, coaster-brakes-only bikes down from Spooner Summit above Lake Tahoe on old US 50 down to the flats of Eagle Valley (Carson City)where 50 joined US 395. I made a rough calculation that the distance was about 10 miles and we did it in 10 minutes! We (one of my close friends) probably didn’t go that fast, but it seemed like it. It was wartime (1942, and because gas and tires were rationed, there were not many cars on the road. When we did encounter one going our way, we had no way to stop or slow down; so we simply passed it on the curve. (There were no straight spots of any consequence on that descent. We did meet a couple of cars coming up, but they were less problem. Our big worry was avoiding the seam where the asphalt met the gravel of the shoulder, for hitting that could have thrown us off into the deep canyons. It was an exhilarating ride, but Duane Berning and I never did it again!+ (We had our bikes at Glenbrook, Lake Tahoe because Duane’s dad was the number three man in the Nevada State Highway Department and had them brought up in a truck which was coming to the lake.

This makes me nostalgic. I knew Tahoe when it was pristine, can even remember when the first road was opened all the way around it. We had a cabin my dad and two older brothers built just on the California side of State Line. It will never be that way again. But then, nothing will.

Dad