Dad Taught Me

Every bicycle lesson in America follows the same script. Someone small climbs on, someone larger jogs alongside, and at some point the second someone lets go without announcing it.

The reason is that nobody learns balance standing still. A bicycle steadies itself as it picks up speed, which is why the lesson is mostly a father running and a child pedaling too hard to look back. The training wheels buy a few weeks of nerve. The running buys the rest.

When it works, the child finds out about three seconds late that nobody is holding on. What stays in memory, mostly, is the grin on the man standing a long way behind.

Here the street is a tree-lined neighborhood in flat, grainy color: clapboard houses in white and blue, maples in orange and green, a road the color of butter. A boy in a striped shirt rides a small red bike with training wheels, grinning straight out of the picture, while his father, in a flat cap, plaid shirt and jeans, runs beside him close enough to catch him. A cream banner across the bottom reads DAD TAUGHT ME.