Ka-Blog!

     the wife asks with seeming regularity why i always volunteer to be anyone and everyone’s driver.

    it’s true. i love to drive.

    but my love affair with wheels started way back–before i even knew what a driver’s license is.  i was in grade school in our dusty and rumbunctious barrio, still wearing shortpants to class and has just started wearing briefs, when i had the first taste of it. 

    someone pawned his rundown bmx bike to my mother.  it was painted black (or was it dark blue) and it had no reflectorized lights, no mudguards, no bells, no stickers. it had a chain that slips from its worn sprocket every block or so.  but that two-wheeler gave me my first and best joyrides. 

    since barrio elementary schools take two-hour lunch breaks, i would hurry home and jump onto the bike.  and under the heat of the scorching sun, i would make my rounds in our barrio at a speed that i imagine was very fast then. until the chain slipped again and again, that is.  i would be back before my schoolteacher-mom would be home for lunch herself, lest i get it.  but those were giddy and blissful minutes.

    the bike was taken back much too soon for my liking. the day it left my hands, i was heartbroken.   and i was back to borrowing my friends’ bikes just to have a minute of speed and bliss.   until my parents took pity on me, augmented my earnings from selling ice candy and bought me my first bike.

    we had to go to tuguegarao to buy  it. it was red; it came with a carrier; it had a foot brake; it was–is–an easy rider.  it was no bmx nor was it a shimano.  but it was mine.

    my father unloaded it from the jeepney when we arrived home.  by then, my friends were waiting by the gate and were raring to ride.  i jumped onto my brand-new bike’s seat (still tightly wrapped in plastic) and raced my friends to the barangay park.  halfway there, and with my proud father still looking, i lost control and suffered my first and most embarassing spill.  i looked back and saw him laughing his head off.

    my bike had its first scratch that day.  but it was no matter.  it was still the newest in the barrio.  and it was mine.  so i picked it up and rode it once again.  i did not go home until it was already dark that night.

    countless hours i spent with my bike. i rode it to places that i never knew existed in our town.  it forded rivers and streams, climbed hills and steep river banks, i visited cemeteries and abandoned warehouses with it, it carried me when i had to go to the next barrio to visit a girlfriend or accompany a friend visiting his.  and many times during my childhood and adolescense, it was my best and only friend.

    the bike is still with me.  its red paint has faded; it’s foam seat burst out of its seams.  and even if i pump air into its cracked tires now, i suspect it could no longer carry me as fast as i remember it could. 

    but when i go home to the province, when no one is looking, i go and take a look at it.