My first memory of wheels is a tricycle I got when I was three or four. I wanted to paint it because it was a little bit rusty. My mother produced a small can of blue paint and a brush, and I went to town. I have often wondered if a bit of parental touching up might have been quietly accomplished later. One thing that really sticks out, impressed as it was on the soft clay of my first memory banks, is a hapless wasp who landed in the wet paint and had to be put down. To this day, I occasionally grieve for the foolish thing, much as I do the squirrels who try to confuse the cars and the skunks who try to spray them—that is, any creature who suffers because of a threat it cannot possibly comprehend.

Verily, I do digress.

My other memory of this tricycle has to do with the layout of our childhood house. It has three large rooms downstairs, arranged such that one can make a complete circuit without changing direction. On Christmas Eve, we threw open all the doors, and I trundled around and around and around on that tricycle. Maybe my sisters remember what they were doing at the time? Were they trundling too, or clutching their heads at the noise?

Next came a succession of bicycles. I learned to ride without much injury; the most trying event (for my parents, at least) was when I crashed headlong into a large concrete pillar and wept bitterly. Naturally, I learned to ride quickly, and I graduated from the circle inside the house to the circle (read driveway) outside. As a child, I didn’t go much beyond that circle, but boy did I rack up the miles going around it. Many times, we supplemented the experience by attaching a piece of cardboard (with clothespins) to a spot where the spokes would hit it; it did make a most satisfying motorcycle noise. One time, on the trickiest part of the circle, I fell and caught myself with my right arm. Although we never definitively established a broken bone, the pain was such that I wore a sling for several weeks.

At around age 16 I graduated to buying a new Schwinn ten-speed with racing handlebars. Aunt Helen rolled her eyes at the way I had to hunch over to even put a finger on the handles. I still clearly remember her acting out the way a bicycle should be configured: you wanted to sit up straight so you could look around, you needed a horn on the handlebars for making a joyful noise, and you needed a large straw basket out front so you could pick flowers and carry them home. You would wear your straw hat and sneakers for these outings. One compromise I did make was to get rid of the idiotic toe clips (they were intended to allow you to pull up as well as push down), after I crashed one too many times because my feet were still attached to the pedals.

During our latter years of high school, my sister Laura and I made plans to ride our bicycles across the country. In the end, our bikes morphed into a 1976 Ford Granada, and our destination ended up being Alaska rather than California. We can pedal, and try to steer, but usually that darn bike will go where it wants.