One of the problems with having a blog so long is that I forget if I've written about this or that. I don't like repeating myself. One of the problems with having a blog so long is that I forget if I've written about this or that. I don't like repeating myself.
In any case, I write about dreams often. I even have a "dream journal" I keep next to my bed, so that if a particularly vivid dream hits, I can write it down before it fades from memory. [Insert bit about dreams being portents and signs and such.] Last night, a dream re-visited, however briefly, an incident from my childhood that, while I haven't forgotten it (and have a scar to remind me), I haven't thought about it in a long time.
I learned to ride a two wheel bike fairly early in life- first or second grade. My older brother (OB) taught me. His bike had no training wheels, so he'd push me down a hill in a parking lot, and, at the base of the hill (where there was sediment gravel near a drain) is where I'd intentionally ditch the bike, as it was too big for my feet to touch the ground. Crash! Scrape! Minor road rash. "I wanna do it again!" After a few trips down the hill, I'd mastered the necessary balance, and went into the house dirty, bloody, and happy. Within a day or three, my dad (on a rare day off) removed the training wheels from my smaller bike, and off I went with my new found freedom!
Maybe a year or two later, my parents got me a bigger kid's bike from K-Mart for my birthday. That's the vehicle upon which this tale concerning Newton's Second Law of Motion takes place. This bike, like all bikes of that type, had coaster brakes, which means if you pedal backwards, that would slam on the brakes, and you'd come to a quick-ish stop. And if you did this as a skid, you'd look "BOSS!" (Yeah, that was a thing in the 70s). The weakness of coaster brakes was that the bike chain needed to be on to work. Bike sprockets back then would bend if you crashed enough, which meant the chain could "pop" off. An easy fix if one is stopped. I think you can see where this is going.
As I've written before, the street where I grew up was on a steep hill. Hall street was about three blocks long. West to east, the first block was flat, the second block was a steep-ish hill (and was closed after snow storms for sledding), and third block, upon which I lived, was far steeper with a slight bend to northeast. At the bottom of my block was Main St, and across from that, the foundry and a driveway leading to the creek.
In that order.
Using google maps and equations I looked up (hey- physics class was almost 40 years ago!), the second block descended at an angle of 350 degrees (slope -0.167) and my block was 338 deg, slope -0.4. QED.
One summer's afternoon, I decided to walk my bike to the top of the hill and ride to Church Street (top of my part of the street) for a quick thrill. After all, it was summer, I had a bike, and why not? ZOOM! SKIIIIIID! Maybe do it again. Hey! Maybe if I practiced skidding enough, I'd do it cool enough that the older kids on the block would be impressed and pick on me less for being girly! One of the problems with having a blog so long is that I forget if I've written about this or that. I don't like repeating myself.
Still with me?
So up I went, uphill, barefoot, (shoes in the summer? Oh please!) to the top of the hill. Of course, I'd be pedaling as well down the hill to reach maximum speed so the skid would have maximum coolness! And... they're off! In my mind I was pursuing an enemy plane, and catching up for the kill! Nearing the bottom by the police station, I decided to slow a bit before doing the spectacular skid, and...
The chain popped. No brakes!
The trip
I zoomed through stop sign and intersection fast enough that I didn't want to ditch. Preacher's yard? No I'd hit the curb and wreck. Now the steeper hill... no brakes! Mounted the sidewalk using a driveway about half way down...Zoomed past my house doing 0.5 past light speed. At this point, I had the brilliant idea of slowing by dragging my left foot on the pavement! I forgot- no shoes! Scrape! Owwww!
Angle into the fire house parking lot, maybe ditch there? No going too fast... oh shit! I'll run straight out onto Main Street into traffic! I'll be crushed!
By the time I reached Main street, I was easily doing warp 9.7. Leaned into turning to the right, hoping not to flip and... into the street! Fortunately, no cars were coming. Main street was flattish, so the bike eventually slowed after a couple of blocks, and I put my feet down to stop and OUCH! I left a bloody footprint from my left foot. I ended up stopping next to a yard, hauled my bike onto the sidewalk and turned it over to fix the chain. Then I lay on the grass, my left foot finally sending signals of intense pain.
Don't cry- only babies cry... only girls cry...
I don't remember riding back to my house or dressing the wound (my mum probably did that with mercurochrome- the red-orange cure all that stung like crazy!) In any case, this dressing made me don sneakers for at least a month to avoid infecting the injury, which of course happened anyway, and left me limping, which made me useless for what few games I'd be invited to join by the neighborhood kids. One of the problems with having a blog so long is that I forget if I've written about this or that. I don't like repeating myself.
Speaking of those kids- no one saw my epic death-defying stunt. At all. So obviously, it never happened. If a bike crashes on the street and no one sees it... OB knew I was hurt, knew it was bike related, and, being an older brother, made fun of me. (As I would've had the positions been reversed.)
In any case, said infection led eventually to a Planter's wart (how??) and in either case left the third visible scar on my body (after the Arrow-Chisel Affair and the Bat-rope Rusty Nail Episode.)
Right- so the Dream. This dream was unusual in that I didn't have to be somewhere and by going, end up further from my destination. Also, I wasn't being attacked by someone who I couldn't hurt. Nor was I being abandoned by a loved one. No, in this case, I was driving in "Spring City", the dream version of which is older, rotting, and hillier than reality. I stopped at the intersection of Hall and Church Streets, facing south, when I saw my young self zoom by on the bike, barefoot and yowling like Slim Pickens riding the bomb at the end of Dr. Strangelove. (I don't remember saying or yelling anything on my escapade.) I knew that I had to cross the intersection in my car quickly, as that bike was on an endless loop, with each lap increasing speed until... I don't know... I actually get hit? In the dream, I crossed the intersection, and in the rear view mirror, saw young me on the bike whip past again, face distorted like I was in a 10G dive. Part of me wanted to stop, and, when I zipped by again, try to grab me from the bike and roll into the preacher's yard. But- I (older me) was in a dress, and that wouldn't be lady-like, and what if the neighborhood kids saw me in a dress? I'd get beaten up for sure and they'd tell my parents and...
I woke up.
Went to the bathroom. 3 am. Back to bed. No more dreams for me tonight, thanks, I'm driving!
Looking back now- remembering how I felt careening out of control on that bike- I don't remember being really scared of being killed or maimed or such. I was scared of getting in trouble for breaking the bike.
Some things never change.
FYI: Out of curiosity, I enlisted a Physics PhD candidate to help me figure out how fast I was going, and impact force had I hit a car on Main St. By taking measurements on Google earth, and approximate heights from a topographic map, using my approximate weight at the time (plus bike), constant of friction from air and from bike tire on asphalt, he whipped out equations, calculations, and eventually determined that, depending upon certain factors such as how I was sitting on the bike for wind resistance, and tire pressure, by the time I reached Main street I was going somewhere between 40-60 mph, probably on the lower side of that range. In a car, 35 mph is lethal upon impact, so (checks the numbers in Tefft, 2013), I had a 75-100% chance of serious injury, and a 50-90% chance of death... depending upon various factors. So me not hitting something at the bottom of the hill was damn lucky.
Be well.
Tefft, B. C. (2013). Impact speed and a pedestrian's risk of severe injury or death. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 50, 871-878.
