First set of wheels

My first car was a red convertible with beige interior and the best metal wheels money could buy. It was small enough to move nimbly, to handle sharp curves with ease and to show every other kid on the playground who ruled recess racing. Ford,Volkswagon, none of these wannabes could match my first car – Matchbox.

The best part of a Matchbox or Hotwheels was the economics behind it. At $2.50 a car, you could afford to cruise carelessly or just total the whole thing if you got frustrated. Your first set of wheels is special… but what about the second?

As you cruise into your fifth year you’ve decided to explore a new dimension in transportation: the tricycle. After my first tricycle, I was never the same again. What a confidence booster. No matter how hard you try, a tricycle will never tip over. I can still remember my first tricycle, a fisher-price cruiser with a MADD sticker on the back. It just goes to show you, you’re never too young to think about important issues ahead.

Graduating to a bicycle is one of the defining moments of childhood, aside from getting the chickenpox or realizing you can’t fly. You’re seven now, the age of reason, and it’s time to put the hurt on the pavement. How hard could it be? Then mom lets go of your seat and you discover the fundamentals of physics. They say, “You have to learn to crawl before you can walk.” Well with your first bike it should be, “you have to learn to fall before you can ride.”

Anyone born before 1984 can tell you, there was one other prized mode of transportation: “Pow-Pow-Powerwheels!” But the real power comes with that gasoline driven, motor vehicle registered, automatic sunroofed, cd-playing, means of T-R-A-N-S-P-O-R-T-A-T-I-O-N; your first car.

Your first set of wheels carried you through imaginary highways, mastering physically impossible stunts, claiming unthinkable speeds, and reaching and resting in the sacred space of a child’s mind. The wheels that follow only get you from point A to B with increasing sophistication and decreasing thrill. The first set gives you something that the last set could never deliver: the opportunity to take any exit you wish, free of consequence. Life is good when you get into an accident and all you have to do is snap on your back bumper.