The Excited Courage I Needed Dad was very protective of me as I grew up. I saw his safety rules as signs of a mean Dad. Everyone was riding a bike. Except me. We lived at the end of a short driveway which veered off from a 300-foot lane. The neighbour children flew down this lane with their bicycles, and I could only watch them enviously and wistfully, not partaking, forbidden from riding a bicycle. Often, in the midst of those long summers, I sat at the edge of our yard watching them ride. They loved the attention my close observation gave them, and they pedalled fast and furious past me, knowing they were the object of my envy. The winter I was eleven, five years after my sister died, my father surprised me with a bike. It was no ordinary bike that he had purchased it at a used bicycle shop and had hidden in a shed out back. Carefully, with his artist’s hand, he painted it light blue with white trim. He had even painted the handlebars and wheels with silver paint. I like to ha...
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