One Bad Biker

Shortly before we moved to Idaho, some our dear friends from the Immanuel Church of the Nazarene (Webb and Kate Helton), gave Trey this purple electric motorcycle. I was immediately jealous. I always wanted something cool like that when I was kid. I can't tell you how many times I requested the electric Jeep 4X4 for Christmas only to be disappointed upon opening my present containing dress shirts. I secretly wanted to ride the thing myself.

Well, this is the first year that Trey has actually been big enough, not to mention coordinated enough, to ride the bike. So, he has had a blast. He kind of has the steering down, kind of knows how to break, and definitely knows how to pull the throttle all the way back. It's pretty funny to watch him. He's not real confident in his ability to steer, so as he roars up the sidewalk, he brakes violently before coming to any object. On our block, many people have the mailbox/newspaper box on a pole in the middle of the sidewalk. So, instead of just going around them, Trey flies up to within 3 feet and then slams on the brakes, coming within inches of the boxes. He, then, very slowly and carefully navigates around the object in his way. When he's clear he's back on the throttle.

Our family went for a walk the other night, and Trey wanted to ride. The motorcycle is actually pretty fast. I have to stay at fast jog to keep up with him. While, he was slowly making his way around another box, I took off at a run. I was also pushing Kassady in the stroller. I got up to a driveway about 40 yards down the road and turned around to wait on Lori and Trey. Well, Lori had told Trey to catch up with Daddy and Kassady and Trey took her literally. He came flying up the sidewalk to where we were standing. If I would have been thinking I would have surmised that there Trey doesn't differentiate between obstacles, mailboxes or people. As I stood waiting and Trey got closer it finally clicked that he wasn't planning on braking. Now, the motorcycle is fairly small, and he is only going about 6 or 7 mph, but I'm still thinking that he could cause much damage to my person. Sure enough, he didn't stop, he steered right for us at full throttle. I shoved Kassady out of the way and jumped the other direction as he went motoring by.

He thought it was hilarious! So did my caring wife Lori, who upon seeing the narrowly averted disaster, burst into uncontrollable laughter (which lasted for several minutes). Kassady and I weren't as impressed. We spent the rest of the walk behind Evil Knievel.