Higbee: Tyke on trike left to wonder

By Walter Higbee | Wednesday, October 08, 2003

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In the summer of 1989, I took part in an Elderhostel program at the University of Iowa. (Elderhostel is where old-timers get the opportunity to test their college skills again.) While there, I met a fellow student named Harry Pearlman.

We became good friends during the summer, partly because we were both interested in writing and partly because of our divergence in lifestyles. I came from the wilds of western South Dakota, and Harry came from the wilds of Brooklyn, N.Y. Harry was a building contractor, and I was a college professor.

In the Elderhostel class, we both had the opportunity to read some of our writings to our classmates and to accept their criticisms. I read a piece about playing hoops and guiders as a child and another, a satirical account about how I helped shorten World War II. Harry read about how, as a Brooklyn child, he met his first cow. Then, he read another story that, as I told the class, was the best thing I had ever heard. I don't have a copy of it, but I can still remember it vividly after nearly 15 years. Here is Harry's story:

When Harry turned 4 years old, he was given a new tricycle for his late-winter birthday. His family lived in an upstairs tenement in Brooklyn. For the remainder of the winter, Harry had to be content to ride the tricycle around the tenement floors. He waited anxiously for the first opportunity to take his trike outdoors.

Finally, there came a day in late March when the snow was all gone and it was fairly warm. Harry's mother let him take the tricycle down to the tenement sidewalk. Harry hopped on his birthday present and started to pedal, listening to his mother's admonishment not to try to cross any streets. Harry came to the first corner and, mindful of his mother's warning, made a left turn before the temptation to cross the street could take hold.

Now, Harry was in surroundings he had not seen before. He kept pedaling, meeting people he didn't know and who didn't seem to know him. He pedaled faster and soon came to another corner. He made another left turn. This put Harry in even stranger territory. This was getting to be a little scary. There seemed nothing to do but keep pedaling, even if his legs were beginning to tire.

Harry's next left turn put him in territory that was somewhat familiar. He even saw a couple of people he thought he recognized. He thought he remembered driving down this street with his father one time.

The next corner brought a revelation. Another left turn brought exhilaration. He was back on the familiar street on which he had started his journey! There was his tenement building, and there was his mother, looking about anxiously and shouting, "Oh, there you are, Harry!" Harry pedaled his tricycle right up to her and hopped off. He was very tired.

Harry remembered a few years later, when he was in an upper elementary grade, that his history lesson was about Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan, he learned, gained fame by circumnavigating the globe. Harry felt some kinship with Magellan by his own circumnavigation of a city block when he was 4 years old.

In class, I reminded Harry that his experience was similar to the simple explanation of how to play baseball — just hit the ball, run and keep making left turns.

Walter Higbee is a retired college educator living in Spearfish. Write him at the Rapid City Journal, Box 450, Rapid City, SD 57709.