The Big Wheel Disaster of '78

     For some, Christmas ends at midnight, December 26^th.  Not for me.  I still bake, enjoy family and friends stopping by, listen to Christmas CDs, burn cranberry-scented candles, and relish in my new gifts so generously given by loved ones.

     Not long ago, I wrote a blog called, The Spirit of Christmas Past.  In it, I listed my top ten gifts from Santa, who lovingly delivered them without fail to me and my eight siblings every Christmas morning in piles around our small town Pennsylvania living room.

     Coming in at the runner-up spot was the classic Big Wheel.  I am pretty sure if they made a big girl Big Wheel for a woman about halfway through her forties, I would have put it on my list right after Jillian Michael’s Extreme Shed and Shred.  (I promise, Jillian, I resume your workouts today ~ and after the way I’ve eaten since Saturday evening’s Seven Fish meal at my sister's, the obvious choice is Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism.)

     In times like these, a pile under the tree can look so paltry and pitiful yet cost Santa near a thousand dollars.  But the Big Wheel was just the opposite.  It lived up to its name without breaking Santa’s bank.  And I rode it until there was nothing left to that wheel.

     Even when Empire got innovative and decided to add a brake to the popular vehicle, the “King of the Sidewalk” happily remained within Santa’s budget. In fact, so popular was the ride, that when we visited our cousins in Delaware, we did not have to haul our own fleet in the family station wagon.  My eight cousins had a fleet of their own, including its most recent model with the brake.

    In those days, we didn’t have video games or cell phones or game systems like Xbox Live or the Wii.  If you wanted to play a video game, you had to gather some quarters and find the nearest 7-Eleven, where you waited in line for the Pac-Man machine to become available.  Eventually, you got to play Atari on your family TV, and I admit we would spend hours watching that little “ball” bloop across the screen as we raced to intercept it with our little rectangle-shaped “racquets” on each side.

    Still, the best games were the ones that involved hoards of neighbor kids running around, like “Kick The Can”, “Baby in the Air”, and “Hooper”.  They cost nothing ~ just a whole lot of energy to avoid being tagged or pegged by a ball.

    So, on one summer visit to my cousins’ home, we decided to invent our game involving the Big Wheel.  We only ever played it one time. 

     To start the game, you had to take the Big Wheel to the top of the street, which was on a pretty significant incline.  As the Big Wheel sat at that corner, which was about seven houses from my cousins’ front yard, my siblings and cousins would line up down the street along the way to my cousins’ home.  If you were older, you had to be farther away from their house, but the younger ones were allowed to be closer so they would not have to run as far.

    The object was simple: as a player, you had to avoid being mowed down by the Big Wheel once it was set in motion. If you got safely back to the base, which was the front yard, you won.  If you didn’t…well, I guess we really didn’t think this one through all too well.

     I don’t know which of us created this particular game, but I do recall that I and my other eleven year-old cousin agreed to be “it”.  Our logic was that with two largest kids on The Big Wheel, her sitting and me standing on the little space behind the adjustable seat, the vehicle would move slower and the contestant would thus have a greater chance of... “surviving.”

     I never took a physics class, but had I done so, it may have helped me to understand what happened next.  When my cousin and I shouted, “Go!” and the big bad Big Wheel with the new brake feature was unleashed from the top of the hill, instead of slowly rolling down the street, it gathered steam and went speeding like a bat out of hell.

    All the kids started screaming as they raced their way back to the yard.  Thank God, they were all pretty athletic, because had they not been, the outcome might have been far different.

     Only one little cousin, though, did not seem to immediately grasp the gravity of the situation ~ or the speed with which we were flying down the road.  All the other kids started yelling, “Robbie! Get out of the way! Robbie! Get out of the way!”  If he didn’t, we were all about to find out what it meant to lose this game.

     As my cousin and I approached him within a few inches, he finally turned his head over his shoulder, saw how we were right at heels, and he veered off into a neighbor’s yard at the last possible second.

     It was a very close call, but it did not solve our problem, which was, essentially, how in the world do we stop this thing?

    As we began to pass the front lawn where all the other children were safely gathered at the “base”, I got the idea to use the Big Wheel’s newly-added brake system.  I reached to the side of the roaring machine, grabbed the brake, and pulled it hard.

    Unfortunately, at that moment, we were coming up to two sections of side walk that had pushed up from the ground over the years to create a sort of ramp ~ one that we went sailing off of with a not-so-pretty landing.

     My feet fell off the back of the Big Wheel, while my cousin’s bottom fell off the seat.  For what seemed like an eternity, we were both being drug along the cement.  I guess I could have simply let go, but we were in this thing together so I held on until body weight (mine more than hers) brought the lone run-away wheel to a stop.

    She rolled off the Big Wheel and I finally let go, and we both lay on the sidewalk crying out in pain as our siblings surrounded us assessing the damage.

    “Look at her elbow!”

    “Look at her knees!”

    “Look at her arm!”

     After a few moments, the contingent of younger children helped us to our feet and moved our bloody bodies into the house, where we spent the next few days exhausting my aunt’s supply of Band-Aids and Bactine spray.

    We never played that particular version of tag again ~ but it did not daunt us from riding our Big Wheels in the future.  As I’ve said before, if I could, I’d still be riding one today.

     Have a wonderful Tuesday ~ and have fun playing with all your toys.


PS ~ Check out http://www.originalbigwheel.com/  for  little nostalgia :)