Rattling Around in my Head

Image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

While working on an assignment for an online class I’m currently enrolled in, we were asked to write a few brief lines about ourselves. As usual, I struggled to have something to say, but then the words started flowing. If this was a traditional class setting, I’d never get up in front of the class to spill it all out, so I decided I’d edit the written part of the assignment and integrate a link to this blog entry.

When I was a toddler, the law didn’t require that children needed to be secured in carseats. So one day while my dad was taking a left turn into our neighborhood, the passenger side door to our old family car flew open and out I rolled into the intersection. Luckily, traffic wasn’t too busy at the time and I was not seriously hurt. But my two older brothers (who probably opened the door) or other people who hear this story like to say that this incident explains a lot about me.

A few years later, California’s laws were still pretty lax regarding preventive measures and children still weren’t swaddled in safety equipment from head to toe. My mom sent me out on my bike to run an errand to the store which was located at the corner of that fateful intersection, on those grounds which I was well acquainted with. Just as I entered that crosswalk, BAM! I was knocked off the bike and back on the ground. Again, I was not seriously hurt but just a little scared and embarrassed by the two teenage girls who were now screaming inside the car that just hit me and attracting unnecessary attention.

At that stage of life, I’d never even heard the term “Hit and Run.” (In this case, they hit, I ran!) I quickly got up, brushed myself off and took off as fast as I could ride, returning home without getting the loaf of bread or whatever it was that my mom sent me off to buy. Moments later, the teenage driver and her passenger ended up at our house, to apologize to my parents and inquire about my well being. “Hit and Runs” are commonplace now, almost a daily occurance in the news and seemingly with no shortage of people with compromised consciences. (I recently noticed that someone hit my rear bumper and slightly cracked my tail light. It must have been a ghost, because there was no other explanation!) In a general sense, that these young teens who hit me even took responsibilty for this incident was yet another example of how some things that used to be have changed now. I find that as I grow older, these instances somehow keep popping up in my head, the same head that I supposedly bumped too many times while not wearing helmets or seatbelts.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to meander around the block more than a few times now, whether by foot, bicycle, roller skates or skateboard (metal, clay or urethane wheels) and car, with or without a helmet or my seatbelt fastened. (Kids, don’t try this at home!) Anyway, the seatbelt is mostly fastened now, as the law dictates. Never mind that Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, little bits of me are left all over the sidewalks and streets of Southern California from all the falls and spills I’ve taken. But I keep moving along. To this day, I still get a bit of a charge (no pun intended) and mental stimulation being around people who are actively participating in life around them, with or without safety nets. I also like to imagine that there’s always going to be a little room left inside my head to learn a few new things.