Pride Goeth . . .

 

Pride Goeth . . .

It wasn’t the fact that it was a hand-me-down; when you’re the last one at the end of the line of a large family, hand-me-down kind of defines your wardrobe as well as many of your possessions.  It wasn’t the fact that it was kind of basic, especially after I got it – although it had streamers on the handlebars, a ringer, and even a light when it was brand new.  All of those were long-gone by the time the bike got passed down to me.  I think it was pride, and that pride blossomed into envy.  It gave me an early hard example of why pride and envy are on the list of the seven deadly sins – thank God, for me it was painful, but not fatal.

My parents bought the only house they owned in 1962, in a new neighborhood that was springing up on the far westside of Green Bay.  It was so new that beyond our house there was only open fields.  Because the newer houses attracted a lot of newer families there was enough other boys around the ages of my brother Mike and I to scrape up a baseball game on most given days.

The bike was supposed to be half mine.  It was a “shared” Christmas present.  Sharing something like a bike really doesn’t work, at least not for the younger child (see A Sled of My Own, 2/9/24).  It seemed that every boy in our neighborhood had a bike of their own except me.  So, for a year or two of sharing, I walked or ran everywhere the pack of boys headed.  Most often, that was Murphy Park which was only about a half mile. 

I thought all of my big life problems were solved when Mike received his own bike for his birthday.  It was a Schwinn with 26-inch tires.  I didn’t appreciate it at first, but those 26-inch tires would lead to my downfall.  Mike’s birthday is in February, so it wasn’t until the snow melted in late April that my new dilemma became apparent. 

My hand-me-down bike had 20-inch tires.  And as Fate likes to work, I found in the spring that I was the only boy in the neighborhood with a bike with the smallest tires.  No-matter how hard I pedaled; I just couldn’t keep up with them.  So, I was still the last one to arrive wherever the gang was going.  I lived in this state of injustice for three more years.    

The summer before I was to enter the sixth grade, two additional factors for my downfall fell into place.  They were the seeds of my own tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first, was the city put curb and gutter and blacktopped all of the neighborhood streets.  The second was that another family moved into our neighborhood and they had a son named Scott, who was my age.  Scott was nice enough, but he had the coolest bike I ever saw.  It was a Phillips three-speed.  It was red, had skinny racing tires, and the spokes seemed to glisten in the sunshine when he rode past my house.  He may have just been going past innocently, but I think he knew how much torture it was for me.  It was the first time that I was seriously envious of something that someone else owned. 

I wanted that bike.  No-one else in the neighborhood had a bike with three speeds, racing tires  and handbrakes.  I found that in my heart of hearts I didn’t want to have the same bike as everyone else; I wanted the best bike, well at least it would be better than everyone else’s except Scott’s. 

I couldn’t believe my ears when my sister Sharon came to me near the end of summer vacation and told me that she was going to buy me a new bike.  “Pick out whatever one you want, and we’ll consider it an early Christmas present.”  I didn’t hesitate – although part of me wondered what the catch was.  In my world, or at least in my family, the youngest child did not get a new bike, especially as an early Christmas present.

I recall that it seemed a bit surreal to go to the store to pick out my bike.  The store had two Phillips bikes – one red and one black.  I picked the black one because Scott’s was red.  My bike would be the only black three-speed Phillips bikes in the whole school!  I actually looked forward to the first day of school.  I imagined how envious all the other kids would be as they all would turn to watch me cruise into the school parking lot – my spokes glistening in the bright sunshine. 

Mike had left the house earlier that morning of my triumph.  He wanted to ride with his friends – his older friends - that’s the way eight-graders acted I guess.  I was fine with it.  I preferred to ride alone, so that no one’s view of my bike would be blocked. 

I finished breakfast, got dressed in my brand-new school pants and shirt.  We always got a new set of clothes for the first day of school.  I grabbed my Bonanza lunch box and headed out the back door to where my faithful steed – the black Phillips was waiting anxiously for me.  Two blocks up I turned left onto Westfield Street.  I was staying close to the edge of the curbing as I had been taught.  I recall that I saw the stormwater grate coming up.  Then, the world fell out from underneath me.  I went sprawling headlong over my handlebars and hit the blacktop hard.

What I wasn’t aware of was that those cool, skinny racing tires would actually fit inside the stormwater grating.  I managed to get back up and assess the situation.  I saw my bike, front wheel down into the stormwater grate, and knew now too-late what had happened.  The palms of both of my hands were scraped and bleeding – little bits of gravel had to be brushed out of the wounds.  Both knees were torn out of my brand-new school pants, but the skin was fairly intact. 

I extracted my bike from the grating, hopped back on and headed back home.  My mother helped me get washed up and changed.  I jumped back on my bike and headed for school.  I put third gear to the test as I pedaled as fast as I could.  I heard the school bell ringing when I was still more than a block away.  When I pulled into the school lot and headed around back to the bike racks there wasn’t another soul to be seen.  Everyone was already inside the building.  I got sent to the principal, to explain to Sister Concepta why I was late and get a permission slip to return to my classroom.  I may have been late for class that morning, but I had already learned quite a bit the hard way: “Pride goes before disaster, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

His Peace <><

Deacon Dan

Photo by Francisco Aceldo on Unsplash