And The Wheels Keep On Turning

After being confined in a closed space for the first nine months of our lives, when we finally find the exit our first action involve movement of arms and legs a-flailing wildly as the doctor slaps our bottom.

Our first wobbling steps into mobile freedom are accompanied my shrieks of laughter and buckets of tears from parents and other assorted family and neighbors. The second milestone has been achieved and our little brains aren't even able to comprehend what we've just done.

Folks my age can recall with fondness the “Baby Tender.” It was a card table with that most wonderful of all inventions ... the wheel. It had a square hole cut out of the middle into which was inserted a cloth seat hanging down. The seat was just low enough that baby's feet could reach down and propel themselves around the hardwood floors. We sat back just far enough that we couldn't reach anything beyond the edges of the table.

A baby sitter on wheels. Outstanding!

Our next mobility device was a stroller in which we rode to the store, to Sunday school, to ball games to watch big sister play basketball and to grandma's. Sometimes pushed by dad, sometimes by mom and sometimes by older siblings.

Then when our legs became strong enough to hold us up we got a walker with front wheels that we pushed all around the house getting into trouble and hearing “don't touch that or you might get hurt.”

Our next venture into the wide, wide world of mobility was a tricycle that we merely sat on and propelled with out legs. Zipping around and bumping into things inside the house was a concern to our mothers so as soon as the weather permitted we were outside in the driveway with mom's words, “Now don't you go into the street or you'll get hit by a car” echoing in one ear and going out the other.

That conveyance was followed by a trike or a John Deere tractor with pedals that could propel us a bazillion mph down the driveway and into the street being very careful not to look both ways. Our space was still somewhat limited by the strength in our legs and the desire to go some where.

When we were almost “all-growed-up” at the age of maybe 6 or 4, Santa brought us our very first bicycle equipped with fringes streaming from the handle bars, a basket on the front and a very cool bell. Back then Santa didn't care if we wore a helmet. It just wasn't in style yet but he did insist on training wheels for the first few miles of driveway and sidewalk traveling. This added degree of freedom was exhilarating indeed.

The day came when it was time to take off the trainers. We anxiously awaited this day, some with breathless anticipation and some with fear and dread. Some said, “I can ride anywhere I want. I can ride to the Moon!” Others said “What if I fall?”

All this freedom just because Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble invented this marvelous thing called the wheel on their days off from the quarry. They trained Dino to pull the first automobile which was made of stone. They could also sit on the seat and propel the contraption with their legs. They, in turn, invented mobility.

Think of where we'd be without wheels. No Conestoga or Studebaker wagons to take the Pioneers to Oregon. No paddle wheel river boats. (That's a stretch but it IS a wheel.) No train systems to employ the Irish and Chinese to build the miles and miles of track. No trucks to haul the produce from California harvested by the Mexican Braceros. No limo's to take big shots to work. No air planes. No taxi cabs for the Pakistanis to drive. No 7-11s for the East Indians to own. This country would be in the soup had it not been for the wheel.

Remember your very first car or pickup? Driver's education at school? Your first driving license? Your first solo road trip to visit your grandparents waaaay out in the country six miles? Then there was the drive all the way to Havre ... alone.

That was back in the day of unrestricted speed limits in Montana. Remember your mother's warning, “Now don't go crazy. Stay under 65 mph or you'll get in a wreck.” Your reply, in exasperation “Mom, I KNOW how to drive, I'm 16.” All this done while rolling your eyes and stomping your foot. But talk about freedom! Brother, it's here. I can drive to the moon! Or at least, off to college.

But what comes after all the years of freedom.

Here's what. Old age creeps up on us incrementally. The first indication is the restrictions on the back of our driver's license. Mine reads, “Must wear corrective lenses.”

Next will come the restriction of travel imposed upon us by our children in retaliation for us restricting them when they first drove. “Now, Dad, don't go too far and get tired. You will get in a wreck.” Or “Just to the store Mom. Sometimes you forget the way home.” To which you'll answer “Helen, I KNOW how to drive and how to get home” all the while forgetting you're talking to Grace, not Helen.

Then comes the thing from your early childhood. The walker with two front wheels, then the walker with no wheels but still you have mobility.

Then comes the “adult stroller”. The wheel chair. Sometimes pushed by a sibling, sometimes by a nurse.

And lastly, we'll be confined in a very small space and conveyed to our final resting place in a fancy hearse on wheels accompanied by other wheeled conveyances including a horse-drawn buggy.

We have made the journey full circle.

That's it for now folks. Thanks for listening.