Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Scooter


 The scooter sat next to the old stone wall, sitting forlornly in the rain.  Although it was still in pretty good shape, on closer inspection, one could see that it had been around for a while, and had been well used and loved.  A dent on its upright bar had come from the time when its owner had run into a low cement barrier, winding up with scrapes and cuts on her arms and knees.  Chipped and faded paint were testament to the years it had spent in all kinds of weather.  Yes, it had definitely been well used and much loved.

Jamie thought back to her 8th birthday party.  All her family had been there, as well as her three best friends from school.  There had been cake and ice cream, music and games, and presents, of course.  Funny how all these years later she couldn't remember anything she'd gotten that year except that scooter.  That had definitely been the highlight of the party.  Jamie had wanted a scooter for months; all of her friends had them, and even though they shared with her, she still felt a bit left out when they went riding around the neighborhood.  She felt too silly to try to run alongside and keep up with them.  But now she had a scooter of her very own!  And what a scooter it was!  It was pink and white, with Hello Kitty logos all over it. It had shiny chrome on the handlebar and wheels, and it even had pink and white tassels on each handle.  Jamie fell instantly in love with her scooter, and nothing would do but for her to go for a ride immediately.  Her friends all had their scooters, as well, so the four girls spent the rest of the afternoon happily cruising the neighborhood sidewalks.

Time went by, as it usually does, much too quickly.  Jamie spent hours upon hours with her scooter.  She rode it everywhere she possibly could, and even some places she couldn't...like into the neighbor's ditch one mid-summer evening when she was 10.  She'd been following a footpath that had been traveled so much and was so well-packed that her scooter's wheels had no trouble rolling along it.  It crested a small hill and continued onto the neighbor's property, ending in what looked, in the twilight, to be just a soft, grassy field.  Jamie decided to see just how fast she and her scooter could go down the hill, and kicked off.  She gathered momentum, and soon she was going fast enough to feel the wind blowing her hair back from her face.  She threw her head back and crowed with laughter, relishing in the sense of freedom.  All of a sudden, she looked back to the path before her, noticing too late the rock directly ahead.  It wasn't a terribly big rock, but it was big enough to bounce the scooter up into the air, along with Jamie, and they both landed--KERPLUNK!--in the neighbor's ditch.  Fortunately the ditch was full, and Jamie wasn't hurt beyond a few bruises and scratches.  The scooter was also all right, having just suffered a few minor chips to its paint.

Over the next few years, Jamie and her friends acquired bicycles and roller skates, and two of the girls even got skateboards, and Jamie enjoyed all these things, but she always came back to her scooter and spent time just riding around on it.  She sometimes pretended she was a pharaoh in a chariot, and sometimes that she was skimming on a magical platform through the universe.  Her scooter took her on many adventures.  Eventually, though, Jamie got too big to ride the scooter, and so it got left in the backyard, leaning up against the stone wall that fenced in the property.  The sun faded its paint and hailstorms further chipped its finish.  Jamie's mother suggested many times that she give the scooter away, but Jamie just couldn't bring herself to do it.  She had too many fond memories of it, she said.  And so it stayed where it was.

Shortly after Jamie turned 18, her parents decided they were going to sell the old house.  Since Jamie was going off to college out of state and was going to be staying with friends, they said there was no need for the rest of them to stay in such an old place.  It constantly needed something else repaired, and they just didn't want to deal with it any more.  So the family held yard sales and donated to charities the things that didn't sell.  Everything they decided to keep got packed neatly into boxes and labeled.  Jamie got her things ready to go to college.  Finally, the house was empty.  It had been sold to a family with two young children, a boy and a girl.  The girl was about 8 years old or so.  The realtor had described the house as a "fixer-upper," and the parents were eager to start with the fixing.  The kids were looking forward to making new friends in the neighborhood.  After a last look around the house and yard, Jamie and her family were ready to leave.  Her parents and brothers were going to their new house, and Jamie was headed out of state to her friend's house.  Her car was packed to the brim with all her favorite possessions--all but one, that is.  Her beloved scooter just wouldn't fit.

And so Jamie wept a few tears for the piece of her childhood that she was leaving behind, caressed the scooter's handlebars lovingly one last time, plucking off the now-bedraggled tassels as she did so, and turned to walk away.  But she realized that she couldn't leave quite yet.  She tucked the tassels in her back pocket, then climbed on the scooter for one last ride around the garden paths.  She threw her head back to feel the wind in her hair, and for a few moments she was a little kid again, with not a care in the world except getting home in time for dinner.  All too soon, though, Jamie came back to her starting point, and had to come back to the present.  She wistfully parked the scooter in its place against the old stone wall and went to her car.  When she got in, she hung the tassels from the rear view mirror for good luck.  She looked at the scooter and said, "So long, old friend.  We sure had fun together.  Hope the new kids like you."  Then, feeling a bit silly, she pulled out of the driveway as a warm summer rain started to fall.