Avocado Greens
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Learning to fly (part 1)3/19/2023 I grew up in a traditional family household, my father worked in a blue collar job while my mother was a housewife, and I had one sibling. We grew up in a 50+ year old Dutch Colonial on a corner lot across from a farm, yes, a farm right in the middle of the small town. I knew many of the names of our neighbours, Mr. this and Mrs. that and we were the generation of kids that knew to be home when the streetlights came on. I was lucky in the rule because our front lawn was illuminated by a streetlight across from our house. This meant that in the evening I could be out there playing tag, shadow tag, or hide and seek until 9:30pm or so (earlier on a school night of course).
We had a line of trees and a small hill across the street which meant tree climbing and making make-shift tree forts for most of my youth. It never once crossed our minds that as we climbed up the cedar trees (sometimes to the height of 6 to 7 metres) that we were perched just 1 to 2 metres from a high voltage power line. I climbed those trees for almost a decade until I grew too big to navigate the maze of not-so-strong branches. I was never good at sports growing up, my agility and balance resembled that of an overweight racoon more than a housecat (interesting since when I was older, I saw myself as being rather flexible). As such I was rather late learning to ride a bicycle, not until I was nearly a teenager in fact. My first bicycle was orange and chrome coloured, I don’t even know what brand it was but it was a solid build. I didn’t really like it because most of my friends had BMX models. Looking back, though, it was probably the best my parents could afford, and I should have appreciated it more than I did. I could not seem to balance myself on two wheels so the bicycle spent a lot of the time on the ground in the side yard. I think I was about 11 or 12 years old when some kid from school (I think I know who it was) stole my bicycle and hung it on the fence at my public school. I remember feeling embarrassed of having to walk it home with a few classmates tagging along. I think they were concerned more about me as friends than supporting what the bully had done. But I didn’t really take notice at the time, if I had I might have been a lot more popular growing up. My father, once or twice, tried to teach me how to ride my bike but either he gave up or I was not interested in learning when he was ready to teach me (guessing around age 10). The next spring, after the fence incident, I was determined to learn to ride that bicycle. I took it down the street to a neighbours elevated driveway. I used the snow to balance myself and I went down the small hill and onto the street sloshing my way, into the melting snow of March, along the curb. Like the saying goes “it’s as easy as riding a bike” and after finally doing it once you couldn’t get me off my bike... Part 2 coming up.
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