Cycling Adventures
Pockets? Pockets?! I Don't Need No Stinkin' Pockets!!

My nephew, Adam, is six years old. As they like to say in the country, he's "all boy," meaning, I suppose, that one should never be surprised at what he might do next.

We were out for a bicycle ride in Colorado last summer, me on my mountain bike and Adam on his twelve inch single-speed. He's a fearless rider, like most kids his age, and we've insisted that he always wear a helmet when on the bike.

We're riding down a path in the campground--Adam is spinning furiously ahead, dropping back, darting down side paths like some disoriented mutated bumblebee, and I'm pedaling leisurely as I watch the slow moving car traffic, because I know he's not--when he rides up next to me and displays that impish grinning expression that is most often followed by an adult's exclamation of "you did what?!"

"I've got cookies in my helmet," he confides conspiritorially. I laugh out loud, feigning the disbelief that I know, in my heart of hearts, is completely irrational.

"No you don't; even you wouldn't do that" I reply.

"Yes, I do. I'll show you."

So, we drift to the right side of the lane and ease to a stop. He hangs his head like he's barfing in the weeds, pulls his helmet off and proudly presents it to me. Sure enough, there in the bottom of his bike helmet lie the sad and broken remains of a cookie, an M&M cookie by the looks of the corpse.

"Hmmm...I had two of them."

Of course, I see immediately where the missing cookie had chosen as its final resting place: his hair.

Having proudly displayed his ingenuity, he begins to put his helmet back on, along with what remained of his snack. "Oh no you don't," I say, insistent on making this a "teachable moment." "You can't put that cookie back on your head."

So he proceeds to eat it.

Well, what can I say? He's a growing boy.