Keeping My Balance

Blog 3781 – 03.29.2026

Keeping My Balance

Today’s lesson is not just for those of us seniors who want to stay up right and mobile and under our own steam to the end of our journey, but for toddlers just learning to navigate this big beautiful world and people of all ages in between. Finding and maintaining our balance is a critical element in walking, running, riding a bicycle and negotiating our way throughout life. If one leans too far to the right or the left, front or back, gravity takes over and down we go.

I do not remember learning to walk, yet I do recall learning to ride a bike. I have shared the story many times and will again because it illustrates the importance of balance.

My sixth birthday was the only birthday party I ever had in seventy-five. It was complete with birthday cake and ice cream and all my young guests got a chance to be blindfolded and to play pin the tail on the donkey for prizes. And there were presents. Since my birthday falls on November 22 my parents, who were not rich, considered it too close for expensive gifts, but my sixth birthday was an exception. Mom and Dad got me a shiny new 12 inch bike with training wheels. It was the best birthday present that I had ever received and I rode it all over the yard that first day with the train wheel.

Boy’s bikes had a double bar between the seat and handle bars. Many a lad learned to refer to that bar by another name, “the nut buster.” If that name offends the girls trust me when I say the first time a boy slipped off his seat and straddled that bar words far more offending were not far from his lips. The fear of repeating that terrible experience made the fear of falling off the bike pale in comparison.

It was a long couple of years before I was finally able to find and maintain my balance enough to ride a bike without training wheels. And it was not on my birthday bike, but my cousin Brenda’s bike, same size as mine, but without the dreaded bar. If you slipped off the seat on her bike you landed flat-footed without straddling a bar.

Brenda and her brother and sister lived with their parents in a duplex. Our Paw Paw and Lilly, Aunt Patsy and her brothers Lamar and Richard lived in the other side of the duplex. As I shared yesterday my mom, younger brother and I often visited after school. My Aunt Pat taught me to bop on one of those visits and my Cousin Brenda taught me how to find my balance and ride a bike. She showed me how to straddle the bike both feet on the ground, then with my right foot to position the pedal so that I only had to step up on that pedal and push forward with my left foot to get the bike moving forward. Standing or sitting I could easily maintain my balance on a moving bike. I remember racing up and down the sidewalk in front of that duplex. It felt like I had wings and had just learned how to fly.

I still feel that same thrill every time I ride a bike.

I am not ready to ride a rocking chair for as today’s song says, “I’ve got to keep on moving.” If it is a choice between rusting out or wearing out, I choose the latter and intend to hold on to my balance for as long as possible.

Your friend, fellow traveler, and bicycle enthusiast,

David James White