What was to be ridden

When I was a young lad of early elementary school years, I had a bmx bike that I rode almost every day after school.  I raced down the roads and onto dirt paths with hills just steep enough for me to feel exhilarated by the drop, but not so high so as to be frightening, as I have always been conservative in my thrill seeking.  The bike afforded me freedom: freedom to visit my friends without needing a ride from Mom; freedom to be alone with my thoughts, imagination, and the wind.    

So I could never understand when my Mom would want us to go on family bike rides down some trail or another.  It baffled me.  Bikes were for getting away from family.  If you wanted to be close to your family you could all just stay home and watch a movie.  But I was either too young to understand that this was my true frustration or I couldn’t communicate it, so instead I would just act sullen or impassive. 

My few friends were different though, being with those friends was more like being alone than being with other people because ideas never required a justification or explanation, all suggestions from either party were immediately identified as a good idea that may as well have been thought up by yourself.  My friendships in those days were virtually frictionless.  We didn’t compete for the same resources like you did with your siblings, so friends became allies and siblings the competition.

Parental attention is a typical resource to vie for, and it is difficult for a child to understand that mommy loves them very much, but she is exhausted, and just wants 15 minutes to herself to take a nap.  If mom wants to be alone why doesn’t she go for a bike ride?  And wanting to take a nap makes absolutely zero sense. 

 So what is a child to do when mom goes to her room and he is left with those miniature feelings of abandonment and rejection?  Either you self-sedate with TV and video games, take it out on a sister or brother feeling the same as you; or, you strap on the helmet of a warrior, mount your steed, and pedal harder and harder until you can hear the song of the wind and the rhythm of your tires and chains.  

So, I get nervous and sad when I drive through a neighborhood and see no children on bikes.   

What was to be flirting with disaster

I am not an inattentive student of the lessons taught by our modern cinema.  I know that when the dead walk again the only way to stop them is by destroying the brain.  I know that ultimate culprit of even a random-seeming tragedy is either a high ranking government official or a large company's CEO.  And I know that when a beautiful women flirts with you, she is going to steal something from you, lead you to an assassin, or kill you herself. 

And so, when I was on the elevator today relating to my friend my views on office productivity in an amusing manner and the pretty young woman in the corner of the elevator began to laugh my instant response should have been suspicion.  But I failed to remember my training and, encouraged by her response, continued my monologue with an increased vigor which was rewarded by an increase of laughter from the lady. 

Fortunately for me, we reached her floor before I could take some foolish action like getting her name or department to track her down later.  Who knows what shallow grave or penniless pit of poverty I would be in now if that had not been the case. 

Those who do not learn the lessons of the cinema are doomed to repeat it, thus it was with our good General Petraeus.  He could have chosen virtually any biographer in the world to write his official biography.  But this man who was instrumental in turning the tide in the Iraq war and defining counterinsurgency as it is practiced in the military today forgot the first lesson they teach you in the International Relations PhD program at Princeton and echoed by Magneto, "...never trust a beautiful woman.  Especially one who's interested in you."