Hoyt’s Hill

 

“I DON’T WANT to hear any woohoos. I want to see serious descending.”

He’d just climbed 300 feet over about three-quarters of a mile, and now we were over the crest and he was feeling the start of his reward, rolling T-right onto Spring Hill Road on his little 20″ kids’ bike and aiming it dead-center at gravity.

“ONE,” I’D SAID to him after making him stop with me at the crest. I was holding one finger up. “You’ll have to brake a lot sooner than you usually do. So do it way early, so you don’t shoot into an intersection and get squished by a car. Got it?”

He broke in with something happy and excited about the climb. I nodded and said, “Did you hear what I just told you?”

“Yes…”

“What did I say?”

“You said…”

“…brakes?”

“Oh, right. I have to brake sooner than I think I will.”

“Correct. I’ll help you with that. When I tell you to do something, you have to do it. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“OK, that’s one. Two is, if your bike starts to shimmy, clamp your knees on the top tube.”

“Oh, I do that anyway.” He showed me.

“So clamp, and also slow down. Don’t do it abruptly, or roughly. Nice and easy, controlled. Got it?”

“Got it! Let’s go!”

He was already rolling.

FIRST LEG, HE overshot the stop sign by a couple of feet. A mother on the other side of the intersection, twenty-five feet away, just barely started reflexively pulling her kids aside, but it was mom-protectiveness, no danger, and there were no cars anywhere.

I raised a hand in thanks and smiled, and she did the same.

“He just climbed it for the first time, so now he gets to descend it for the first time,” I said as we started up again from the stop, explaining why I’d been calling out directions.

“Oh, that’s fine,” she said, smiling as we passed, and then it changed to, “Oh, wow!”

We flashed down past a roadie coming up the next grade. He was mashing. We were a kids’ bike whipping downhill and fenders and bags behind it yelling NICE! GOOD JOB! NICE TUCK!

“OH MY GOD!” the kids’ bike shouted at the bottom, as we coasted on a short flat. “THAT WAS SO AMAZING! THAT WAS SO FUN! OH-MY-GOD!”

“Nice job. Left turn coming up. See it? That’s the next descent.”

I saw him searching, saw him find it. “Oh my god. That’s–”

“Stay right,” I said, and we tilted down.

I HAVE LANDMARKS along this hill for braking. Approaching Hoyt’s Hill on Fawn at full tuck and 223 pounds, the white mailbox is too far.

“OKAY!” I yelled. “I WANT YOU TO BRAKE IN THREE…TWO…ONE…BRAKE!”

In a couple of seconds, there was a tiny wobble in his rear wheel. I knew what that was, and I saw him ease off and get back inside it. He wasn’t to the intersection yet. Apprehension got me, as if there was anything I could do if he overshot now.

We put our feet down at the limit line together. This time yesterday, all three of us were out charging around a parking lot in a downpour. This kid’s just like me in a storm—he nearly glows with the thrill. He was very nearly that electric now.

“OH MY GOD, THAT WAS SO AWESOME! How fast do you think we were going? Oh, you don’t know, you weren’t going as fast as I was. Oh my god THAT WAS SO COOL.”

“No, I was right there with you. I’m thinking maybe thirty.”

“THIRTY! OH. MY. GOD!”

“Maybe. Maybe thirty. Maybe mid-twenties. We’ll see when we get back and see what it looks like on Strava.”

“I think it was thirty! Dad, I could hear it in my ears, like–” he imitated the noise.

I grinned and nodded. Now it was something we both knew. Not just me.

“Okay, we’re going to cross and then stay right. … Go.”

TEN AND a half.

Next summer, adolescence. This summer, “I don’t like being home alone. Can I go too?” and a little red bike and a little white jersey in a tuck.

Going 30.6.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, translated into kidspeak

 

• THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE •
As translated into kidspeak
For later this afternoon

 

WHEN ONE BUNCH OF PEOPLE decides to be a new country, it’s only fair that they tell the other people why.

We think a few things are obvious:

• Everyone’s created equal and has the right to live, be free, and try to be happy.
• Governments are created so people can protect these rights, and people agree to give the governments their power.
• If their government works against life, freedom, and happiness, the people are allowed to either change it, or get rid of it and start a new one, whichever seems better for safety and happiness.

It’s common sense that changing a government for silly reasons is a bad idea, and people usually won’t do it anyway. They’d rather suffer with what they’re used to than change it.

But when the government keeps doing bad things that all seem to make the people less and less free, the people have to get rid of it and figure something else out.

That’s what it’s been like for the British colonies in America. It’s why they’re breaking with Great Britain and making a new country. Great Britain keeps doing bad things to us and taking things that don’t belong to it, so that it can control us completely.

(LONG LIST OF BAD THINGS MAY BE PERUSED AT SOME OTHER TIME, MAYBE NEXT WEEK WHEN YOU’RE BORED.)

Every time Britain has done bad things, we’ve asked for fairness, but the only answer is more bad things. That’s how a tyrant acts, and a tyrant is not fit to rule free people.

We’ve tried to talk to the British people directly, too.

• We’ve told them that their government has been unreasonably controlling to us.
• We’ve reminded them why we left Britain and settled here.
• We’ve asked them to be fair to us, reminded them that we all have family ties in common, and asked them to speak against the bad things their government does, which will break those ties.

But they haven’t listened, either. Not to words about fairness, and not to words about family ties. So we are forced to give up, and to say that they’re not family anymore. They’re just like everyone else in the world now: enemies if we’re at war, friends if we’re at peace.

As of now, these British colonies are no longer colonies. They are their own country, and can do all the things countries can do. They can start and end wars, become allies or make business agreements with other countries, and all that stuff.

We who sign this declaration pledge loyalty to each other, and hope God will protect us.

Signatures