Fear and Shame Expunged Amid the Candlelight

The Friday New York Times ran a picture and promotional message about the lighting of the “world’s largest menorah” on Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.  I thought about going with Gilda and eight-month-old granddaughter Cecilia to the Hanukkah celebration. Why not? We were scheduled to babysit and Cecilia lives close by, perhaps a half mile from the ceremony site. So why not go?

Then I thought about San Bernadino and I was ashamed. Ashamed to think I was ready to concede my freedom to terrorists. Ashamed that I was ready to alter my way of life because crazy people perpetrate obscene, crazy, lethal acts. Ashamed because I was ready to forget that life’s end can be random even without terrorists. Walking across West 43rd street in Manhattan Saturday night I was almost struck by a car. Should I not cross streets any more? Should I let my fears, my caution, overwhelm and negate my right to assemble peacefully to worship? Or attend a concert or sports event? Or just go out to eat or shop? How different was I from those who responded to a Times request for readers to convey how their lives have changed since terror entered our daily psyche: http://nyti.ms/1lzG0mF

Cecilia saved me from having to make a decision. Her bedtime presented a conflict neatly timed to keep me indoors in a neighborhood where unlike sections of Brooklyn just miles away stray bullets piercing windows and killing innocents are not the norm.

Still I was ashamed.

Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the few over the many, the victory of a separate culture over the homogenization sought by a dominant power. If there were any time to show the invincibility of that ideal, a time to visibly show the terrorists that we cannot be cowed into retreat into our safe caves, Sunday night at Grand Army Plaza would have been it.

In the end, Cecilia expunged my shame. Her afternoon nap lasted longer than normal. When she awoke we bundled her into her stroller, met up with Ellie and Donny in Prospect Heights and walked back to their Park Slope home past Grand Army Plaza with the celebration in full swing, if you can call an address from the Brooklyn borough president part of a celebration. We didn’t linger, but we were part of the hundreds gathered to commemorate freedom. 

Two-Wheeled Trauma

Lots of children woke up Christmas morning to find a bicycle under the tree. Or maybe a two-wheeler showed up under the Hannukah menorah a few weeks ago. Either way, my reaction to these childhood conveyances can best be summarized by the following headline: “Fell Off My Bike, and Vowed Never to Get Back On.”

The accompanying article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/nutrition/30best.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage) reconfirmed my antipathy toward a sport, an exercise, that I have disdained since around the time I was 7. I never learned to ride a bicycle as a child, a deprivation of youth I attributed to my father (why blame myself when an adult authority figure is readily available and central to the story?).

Like any good father, my father was teaching me to ride without training wheels, a feat he had accomplished with my brother and sister. Behind our home in Brooklyn, we shared a T-shaped common driveway leading to the garages tucked into the back of each row house. The long portion of the paved driveway was at least the length of a football field and was commonly used for many of the games we played such as ringolevio, punchball and blind man’s bluff. It was a perfect place to learn to ride a bike.

My father dutifully ran alongside the bike holding it steady as I attempted to maintain balance. All was going well. I turned my head to tell him something, but he wasn’t there. I must have been at least 10 yards past him, cycling on my own. But I panicked. I crashed down to the hard pavement. I ran back home, crying to my mother, “Daddy let go.” I was inconsolable, determined never again to trust him to hold me steady, resolute in my opinion that my large tricycle was just as good as a two-wheeler. All my friends pedaled circles around me on their two-wheelers. I countered I could run just as fast as they could bike.

No amount of coaxing could change my mind. It stayed closed-minded for the next 33 years, until I was 40 and Ellie was 7. She had just learned to ride. Gilda threatened to go on biking vacations with Dan and Ellie without me. So I learned (subject of a future blog). On our first bike outing as a family, around the SUNY Purchase perimeter road, Ellie tumbled down a steep hill in front of me. Good thing she was wearing a helmet.

A few months later we were riding in Garden City while attending one of Dan’s soccer tournaments. As we came to Stewart Avenue, a major roadway, I suggested we ride on the sidewalk. Gilda said it would be safer in the street. Fearful of cars, I insisted on the sidewalk. Gilda gave in. As we approached a massive tree with a low hanging branch, Dan said he would try to reach up to touch it. I turned my head to tell him not to, in so doing steered my bike directly into the tree trunk. I crashed, breaking my fall with my right forearm. X-rays from a midnight trip to the emergency room revealed no broken bones, but the wrist took months to heal, less time than it took my ego to admit Gilda was right about where to ride.

The next summer as we were biking on vacation I fell as a car came too close to me on a hairpin turn (at least that was my view). I decided I preferred safety to biking with family and have rarely been aboard a bike since. A few years ago we donated my bike. We gave Gilda’s to our daughter-in-law Allison. Gilda keeps hinting she’d like us to buy recumbent bikes, the type that are low to the ground. I doubt we will. I have too much regard for my bones and insufficient confidence in my stability on two wheels.