Bike meets fire hydrant and looses
I have had some wonderful experiences on my bike through the years. I rode it often from the farm to edge of town to look out over Duchesne from on Blue Bench where we lived. I even rode it to summer school several years and even finally was able to ride it all the way to the top of the hill as I would ride home even though most of the summer I had to walk it part way. I rode on it with Stan and Leesa on their bikes in the darkest of nights and on one for 100 miles for a scout activity two years in a row. I also took it with me to college and rode it up to the Snow College “S” on the mountain near Ephraim. I spent several months on one in the mission field in Texas and even rode out on it in after an Ice Storm when were were barely able to maintain balance as we rode the very ridge of the road, the only place where there was no ice. We even had a struggle getting back on since it was so hard to stay standing let alone riding when you did get on the thin layer of ice.
I often have wondered why I ever spent so much time on my bike though considering the fact that early on in my years of riding I had an experience that should have curbed any desire to ride again.
I was at Duchesne High School and had ridden my bike there from home that day to go to summer school as I recall. I had spent some time with my mother in the library and then decide to go to where dad worked and I guess get a ride home with him that day for some reason. Well I left the school and crossed the street and wasn’t looking where I was going very well because all of a sudden this big red fire hydrant decided to step over in front of me and I couldn’t dodge it in time. (No it didn’t move but the story is a lot more fun since you were trying to visualize in your head a fire hydrant getting up out of the ground and moving at all in the first place.) Well you can about imagine my horror as I flew over the top of the handle bars and past that red fire hydrant that was standing there laughing at me while taking the front tire of my bike and with the front part of the bars bending it to where I would not be able to steer it at all any more that day. I was also quite embarrassed as well since that hydrant was right next to main street and people that I most likely knew had to all be driving past at that very moment.
Well I picked myself up and examined the scrapes on my body then picked up the bike and tried to ride it again. (That was when I discovered that the hydrant had bent it up so badly.) I ended up having to push it the next two blocks (that seemed like miles) until I got to the school garage where dad worked and could, because I had to, get ride home a couple hours later. Yep I am still a firm believer that fire hydrants do have an attitude and maybe it is because of all those dogs that they have to put up with the rest of the time.
