12 Jun
2009

Posted in: Life
By kelli    2 Comments

Big Dipper

For a few years, I had the good fortune of living in a little community known as McConnell Bottom. The same community where my dad grew up, and where my grandmother lived nearly her entire adult life. And in McConnell, a bike was a necessary investment for any child. It was your status symbol. I learned to ride on the tiny street in front of my then Grandmother’s house (later our house), with my dad running behind me as I got up the courage to go it without the training wheels. A few years later, a few inches taller, and it was time to move up to the coveted ten-speed bicycle. I don’t remember the occasion (birthday?), but I do remember my new bike was mint green and pink – perfect. We got home late at night from picking it up in Charleston – a good hour and a half drive away at that time, and it was late. Dark, even. But the kids in the neighborhood knew, and so gathered around to see it before heading off to bed. I think my parents let me have one quick lap around the little loop before coming in, even though it was late.

Speaking of the little loop, there was a corresponding big loop. In fact, this is where we spent the majority of our time. And in the big loop was Big Dipper (the big hill) and Little Dipper (you get the idea). Off a side street there was also Dead Man’s Curve, which you did not attempt until you were older and adventurous. And I was never much for adventure, so I didn’t spend much time there. But Big Dipper was exhilarating! You had to hit it just right to make it down and back up the other side without having to hop off and walk up. Along the loops, you knew the houses where the friendly people lived, the houses where the not-so-friendly people lived, and a few you had no idea who lived there because they were never out. We played on the steps of the church. We played along the riverbank (with proper adult supervision, of course). The boys played baseball in our yard, and the girls – there were just a handful of us – played house in one another’s living rooms.

My parents divorced and we moved to another community, which had a loop of its own. But I don’t hold those memories with such childhood nostalgia, perhaps because I was inching toward Jr. High at that point. Also perhaps because I accidentally left my bicycle behind my mom’s car and she backed over it, and we couldn’t afford a new one. So I was bikeless until last Mother’s Day when my husband bought me a new one. I found out I was pregnant again about three months later and haven’t been back on it since. When Evan came home with me to meet the family one of the first times when we were dating, I drove him down through McConnell Bottom to show him where the majority of my happiest childhood memories occurred. I was shocked to find that Big Dipper was hardly big – the driveway to our home now is much larger and steeper – and Little Dipper was barely a bump in the road. Amazing the difference in perspective from a carefree child on a bike with the whole world ahead of her, to driving through as an adult hoping she can squeeze her car through the tight streets without knocking someone’s side mirrors off.