I conquered my uphill battle, pedal by pedal

When I was 12, nothing thrilled me more than riding my blue-green Huffy bike to the top of my street, then coasting down the hill. I felt free and strong as I sped along. But by the time I left home, I had lost that feeling of freedom. I didn't rediscover it until recently.

Two-wheelers and I didn't get off to a good start. I lagged behind my younger brother Joe in making the transition from tricycle to bicycle. I was a timid child, and I didn't see why I should move from the stability of my trusty red-and-black tricycle to the uncertainty of the shiny-but-shaky Huffy. My trike took me everywhere I wanted to go, generally no further than around the block. But once Joe could bike the length of the driveway, I knew I had to try. It still rankled that he had learned to tie his shoelaces before me. I couldn't let him get ahead again.

My earliest attempts at riding my new bike failed. I fell onto the nubby blacktop driveway, scraping my knee and palms. But I got the hang of riding a bike with practice.

I never took the bike far. My parents were very cautious. They told me to stay on the sidewalk and keep close to home. I obeyed. I feared how they'd respond to defiance. Perhaps if I'd had adventurous friends, I'd have strayed. But I was shy and socially awkward. If I wasn't tagging along with my more outgoing younger brother, I was probably alone.

Generally, the farthest I rode was to the public library at the town hall, just beyond the borders of the 1930s development in which I grew up. The library couldn't have been more than a quarter mile away from my house. I rode there often.

Coasting down the hill on the first block of Southern Parkway was one of my few defiant acts as a child.

"Don't coast down that hill," my mother had said sternly. "Drivers can't see you if they're backing out of the driveway." Most of the houses boasted leafy hedges or trees that disrupted sightlines.

"Yes, Mom," I would say. I might avoid the hill for a day or as long as a week, but then I'd return, knowing that my mother wasn't likely to walk up the hill to catch me.

I pedaled effortlessly up that steep hill, smiling in anticipation of the fun to come.

At the top of the hill, I surveyed my domain. I felt free to imagine a different life when I looked down on my house from a distance. My family wasn't there to disrupt my fantasy life. Southern Parkway stretched ahead.

Despite the grandeur of its appellation as a "parkway," it stretched no more than four blocks. Dutch elm disease had felled the tall trees that had formed a canopy over the street when I'd moved to Rochester in 1960. Their spindly replacements sprouted along the berms that fronted a mix of mostly Colonial and Tudor houses with a couple of ranch houses of later vintage.

I rested on the balls of my feet, then pushed off. Gravity did the rest. As a concession to my mother, I sometimes rang the silvery bell atop my handlebars just before I crossed a driveway.

The cracks separating the squares of the pavement may have jarred my ride, but they didn't diminish my satisfaction at maneuvering my bike at high speeds.

Unfortunately, the ride ended quickly. I had to slow in order to bear right at the bottom of the block to avoid crossing a street untamed by a stop sign. By the time I had advanced the length of another house lot, I had to pedal again. I was back in my everyday world. But that momentary escape from my cares continued to enchant me all the way through high school.

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