Big Wheel

In Timeless Toys I wrote:

It’s the summer of ’70, and I am six years old. My older sister is selling lemonade from our family’s suburban driveway. Her friends are there too, and in an attempt to impress them, I decide to pedal some doughnuts.

Twenty feet from her stand, the handlebars begin to vibrate in my hands. The distinctive rumbling of plastic on pavement is so loud that it threatens my sister’s fledgling enterprise. I pick up speed, my bony little knees pumping frantically. When I’m ten feet from the stand, I hit the brakes. Simultaneously, and with timing I’ve perfected over months of practice, I turn the wheel on my Big Wheel. The chubby back tires begin their perfect arch amidst the pebbles and debris in our driveway. Then, with the hollow sound of scraping plastic still in my ears, my ride comes to a grinding halt. “Check out the doughnut!” I boast. Granted, it’s hard to appreciate coolness when there’s dirt sprayed into your lemonade, but I think somewhere deep inside they all longed to be me.

Okay, maybe not.

It’s not hard to put your finger on the appeal of Big Wheel. It was visceral. When you rode one, every bump and imperfection in your path instantly transferred through the shuddering plastic to your various appendages. Whether skidding to a sliding halt or leaning into a 180° spin, the application of the brakes sent a reverberation up your backbone that turned your spinal column into a tuning fork—Big Wheel nirvana.

Here's proof that this feeling has been passed on to my daughter.