On hiking and biking and growing up ~ June 23, 1988

David Heiller

“Daddy, will you take the training wheels off my bike this morning?”

I looked at my son on that bright May morning. It was not the first time he had asked the question. “I took them off once before, and that didn’t work so well,” I reminded him as gently as possible. They were off for about two weeks, and 14 bruises later, back on again.

Noah lifted each hand, as if weighing a couple cantaloupes in a grocery store. That was his gesture that signaled the coming of a profound, four-year-old statement. “But Dad,” he said, shrugging and raising his hands, “that was before. I’m older now. I’m almost five.

The bike with the training wheels. There appear
to be no photos AFTER the training wheels were gone, I guess because, he never stopped!

“And Matt can ride his bike,” he added. That’s the real reason, I thought, grabbing a wrench from the garage. We had been riding along the Hinckley Fire Trail a month earlier, Noah perched on a seat behind me. We had passed his friend Matt pedaling his own bike, without training wheels. Matt’s grin was as wide as the bike trail.

So Noah’s training wheels came off again. Cindy and I left for work, leaving Noah to practice with a babysitter, Josh. When we came home that afternoon, Noah ran up to us, proclaiming the miracle that he had learned to ride the bike without training wheels.

Sure enough, as we watched beside the car, Noah wobbled forward about 10 feet on his own. At first he had a hard time getting going, and Josh had to give him a push. Sometimes his feet would pedal backwards instead of forward, and the brakes would stop him cold. But he was definitely on his own. Like a bird leaving its nest, he could fly.

Over the next few weeks, Noah’s bike riding skills improved in quantum leaps. He would ride the little 12-inch bike at every spare moment—when he got up, when he got home from day care, after lunch. Soon he could turn circles, then he could ride standing up. One time, he barreled the full length of the driveway, and down the hill toward the outhouse. I stopped from working in the garden as he sped past, and I thought he would end up head first down one of the two holes. But he slammed on the brakes and slid to a grassy stop in front of the door.

“See Dad?” he said, smiling, reading my worried look.

When Gradma Olson came up for Noah’s fifth birthday two weeks ago, Noah had to show off his bike riding skills. He ran naked from the sauna and streaked down the driveway on the bike.

Last Saturday, Noah traded his bike for his hiking shoes. We were camping in Tettegouche State Park on the North Shore. On Saturday, we headed for a long hike. I carried Malika on my back most of the way. Noah walked at a pace that let him search for animal tracks along the trail. We stopped a couple times along the way. Once, a red squirrel scolded us. Noah claimed it was a chipmunk. We stopped at one lake, where Noah watched a fisherman pull in a stringer of nice northerns, one at least seven pounds. On we walked, through cedar swamps and huge hardwoods, up hills and over planks. We ate lunch at an old logging camp. I admired a white pine so large that two people couldn’t link hands around its base. Noah admired a wood chuck which had its home under a root cellar.

As we headed back on the last leg of the trip, Noah started complaining. But Cindy told him, “If you are a good hiker Noah, maybe we can go camping for a whole week in the mountains.”

Noah channeling his totem, the Siberian tiger.

“In the Rocky Mountains?” he asked. Yes, we answered, knowing that the Rocky Mountains held his second favorite animal, the grizzly bear. (His favorite is a Siberian tiger.)

With that inspiration, Noah hiked on. His pace slipped a little, but he kept on. He had to be carried twice, for a quarter mile or so. When we got back to camp, we carefully measured the trip at seven-and-a-half miles. Noah, we figured, had hiked seven of those by himself.

Both Noah and Malika went to sleep quickly that night, curled in their bags in our tent. A storm came up at about 11, as our campfire flickered. By the time we had settled in next to the kids, a real thunderstorm hit. Thunder boomed, and lightening lit up the top of the tent with white and yellow flashes that hurt our eyes, lying in the black tent.

We grabbed the flashlight and shined it on the kids. Noah sat up. “Where’s Mollie?” he asked. “Is she all right?” ‘

We shined the light on Mollie for him. She stirred a little, but did not wake up in spite of the pounding rain and thunder and lightning.

Noah lay on his back next to us. When the lightning flashed, we could see his eyes wide, staring at the top of the tent. It was high adventure for the Great Hiker, the Great Bike Rider.

I found myself thinking too, not about the storm but about our son. I thought about his bike riding, how he could now do little “wheelies” and ride one-handed. I thought about him hiking seven miles and still lying awake, while my back was killing me from carrying Malika all day. I thought about how his muscles were changing, how his legs had the shape of men’s legs, with strong calves. I thought about his first reaction in the storm, asking about his baby sister. Was she safe?

For a second time stood still, frozen by a lightning flash, and it flashed to me—my son was growing up.