THE RECORD

October 16, 1996

BACK TO THE EGG

Suzanne Trevis

It was a bright, clear, sunny afternoon. Cooling off a bit as we were moving into fall, but still one of those really great days when you want to get out and DO something. I must have been about ten or eleven as we still lived in our old trailer and I'd decided now was as good a time as any to do some maintenance on my bike. So there I was with it flipped upside down in the back yard.

We lived on our bikes back then. Long before they ever invented "mountain bikes" for bombing about on rough terrain, we "just did it" on our good old Raleigh's. Over rocks and roots, through bushes and the occasional stream.

Nothing got in our way. And in the those days, as with cars, you could usually fix whatever was wrong with a screwdriver and those nifty little wrenches you get in the repair kit.

Anyway, there I was, struggling away, cleaning the chain and gears, trying to pretend I knew what I was doing and not doing a half bad job.

After a while my dad came out and stood watching for a bit. He was probably waiting for me to ask for help, which of course I would never do. So, tiring of the standoff, he finally tells me, "All it really needs is some elbow grease," then heads off to wherever it was he was going when the sight of me struggling with the bike sidetracked him.

I worked at it a little longer and, after enough time had gone by, decided that maybe he had been trying to be helpful after all (you never can tell with grownups) and headed into the house to ask Mom where Dad kept his elbow grease. In thirty years I don't think I've ever seen my mother laugh so hard.

Needless to say, I felt really stupid and basically ignored all the advice my father gave me for the next ten years.

The bike? Well, despite my limited knowledge and all the expert "advice" the bike lived through numerous other tortures, including my brother, who inherited it from me. But this is a whole other story.