In pursuit of happiness

I was in love but it was only July, school wouldn't start for weeks yet! I worried daily that Le Wonder would forget me.

There were plenty of distractions for me. We had 3 or 4 family reunions, birthdays, weddings, and the rest of normal events to go to plus we were AMA members and the sis, Vee and I rode in the local hill climbs and dirt bike races for kids while Dad rode in the ones for old people.

Dad broke his leg the first time while we lived at the white house. He is not a very patience patient. There is a photo someplace of him with the trophy he won and his cast propped up on the handle bars of the winning bike.

There is no movie but the one in my mind of him riding the bike that way. He stood beside the bike on one crutch, kick started it, dropped the crutch and swung his cast up and on the handle bars, pulled in the clutch with his left hand, bent over and hit the shifter with his right, then sprung upright to drive it as it took off. I watched him go clear down the street, stop at a corner and pop the clutch to take off again. You could hear him going through the gears as he headed down the street. Silly Daddy!

Mom put the halts to it, of course. It was a totally unsafe way to ride as he couldn't watch traffic and drive the bike properly at the same time. Still, we were on Dad's side. We had, all five, had chicken pox recently and knew what it was like to have to stay in bed even if you didn't feel sick, really. Borrrrriiiinnnggg!

He healed fairly fast that time. He went on to repeat the racing regularly and the broken body parts twice more.

While I couldn't find Le Wonder anywhere even though I rode my bike all over town the last weeks of that summer I was true to him in my heart. We still hung with the neighbors but anything that smacked of almost dating or romance with anyone I avoided like skunks.

That would be our last year in town. Again, a landlord would sell a house out from under us and we would move. While we whined about it at the time it would turn out to be the best place we ever lived as a family.