Bah-Bah Black Sheep

“That’s okay. I fall sometimes, too.”

That was Steve, second oldest among us kids. You know how it is with those who are second born. You’re not sure what I mean by that? Please, allow me to elucidate.

Rick was the oldest, mom’s favorite. She tried her best to treat the rest of us fairly, but quite clearly was not up to the task. Being an only child herself, she had no models for how to handle two, much less eight. So, Rick was her golden boy, her pride & joy upon whom the sun both rose & set. Everything he did was amazing & clever & worthy of her highest accolades.

Steve was born next. He was not Rick. She seemed to resent him for that.

It didn’t help that Rick understood his relationship with mom. She wasn’t wrong in considering him clever. He made good use of that knowledge, basking in our mother’s praise while making sure the rest of us stayed in our places. Especially Steve.

Steve was kind & considerate as a child. Even mom confessed this to us once. As Rick entered adolescence & was becoming quite a handful, even for her, we asked about this sudden turmoil in our lives. She explained that it’s something all kids go through as they approach their teens.

That didn’t help. It made us worried.

“What’s it going to be like for the rest of us?”

“Terry & Dan are already easygoing & mischievous,” she said as she considered the five of us, all boys. “They take their punishments well when they get caught & don’t think too much about it. Theirs shouldn’t be too bad.”

That sounded reassuring. But what about the rest of us?

“Rod’s still too young, so it’s hard to tell with him.”

Yes?

“Steve & Randy are always trying to do the right thing. It’s going to be worst for them.”

There it was. Steve was always trying to do the right thing. Later, I would ask her what she thought about my adolescence. She told me she didn’t even remember it. I think it was because she was still focused on his.

Enough background. Let me tell you about my relationship with Steve.

At the age of six months, Steve was the one who taught me to walk. Rick couldn’t be bothered. Terry was only two. Dan, Rod, Kristi & Heidi hadn’t come along yet.

Steve encouraged me. He asked me if I wanted to learn. Then he stood me beside the couch in the living room & had me hold onto it with my right hand. From there, he coached me step by step, returning me to my starting point each time I reached the end. He made it fun. He challenged, coaxed, encouraged, played, celebrated, laughed & smiled with me all through the morning.

When he was fairly sure I could take a step on my own, he backed away from the end of the couch & said, “Now walk to me.” We did that several times. Each time he showered me with praise. Finally, he called Mom & Rick from the next room to see what I could do.

I stood at the end of the couch. He stepped back. And I walked to him.

Rick acknowledged what had just happened, said something like, “That’s good,” then turned around & left. He could have cared less.

Mom celebrated the accomplishment briefly, no more than a few seconds, then returned to the kitchen to finish preparing lunch. She’d already been through the walking thing three times. She didn’t even record it in my baby book.

But Steve & I knew what we’d accomplished. And we understood that it was a big thing.

Yeah, yeah, who cares, right? Lots of sisters & brothers help their younger siblings learn how to walk. What’s so important about that?

Don’t worry, I’m getting there. Just want to lay a little groundwork first.

Steve is also the reason I learned how to read & write (not just print, but script, too), when I was four.

How’d he do that? I’m glad you asked.

It’s not that it was something he planned. He just liked perusing comic books with me. He’d set me on his lap, helping me follow along with the pictures as he read aloud.

Now this is the goofy part. The reason this got me to start reading on my own? The balloons where all the text was contained. I wanted to know how he knew which one to read next. But I didn’t want to ask. I wanted to figure it out.

I hypothesized (long before I knew the word), that it was left to right, top to bottom, just like with the pictures. But I couldn’t be sure until I could read it for myself. So, I sat at the kitchen table & asked mom to help me learn the alphabet.

It wasn’t long before I discovered I was correct. Top to bottom, left to right.

Okay, so what? I understand that’s significant, even life-changing, just like learning to walk. But both of those things were most likely going to happen anyway, given that I was a basically healthy child born in the United States of America in 1959.

I’m getting to that. We’re almost there.

Turning seven was one of those rites of passage in our family. That was the age when mom & dad took us to pick out the only bike they would ever buy for us. Full-size, Schwinn (they were the sturdiest). I chose red.

Now, you know what it’s like when a kid gets their first bike. They want to start riding (or at least learning how) right away. But we lived in Watertown, South Dakota & my birthday was September 26th. (Oddly enough, it still is.) And in 1966 in Watertown, South Dakota the ground was already covered with snow & ice. Not really conducive to learning how to balance on two wheels, sitting atop a frame where my feet barely reached the pedals.

It was early spring when Steve pointed out that it was sufficiently clear & dry. He’d take me out to the driveway & teach me how to ride that six-month-old birthday present if I was so inclined. (Our driveway was actually Ninth Street, NE, but the pavement ended at our corner & the gravel only stretched to the end of our property where it turned into a dirt path mostly covered with tall, unmown grass. Rarely did anyone treat it as a through street, except for Mr. Sherrill when he went to check his horse corral back there.)

Steve held the bike steady as I put my left foot on the pedal & practiced throwing my right leg over the seat. I was always short & it was a boy’s bike (meaning there was that high bar extending from just below the saddle to the steering column—a bar whose only purpose was to define it as belonging to a boy), so this took a while.

Once I was properly situated, Steve helped guide & push while I pedaled to the far end of the drive. As we went back & forth, he lightened his grip bit by bit. Before long he was jogging with me, barely holding on at all. Finally, on the last pass we would take during this tutorial, he let go entirely.

At the end of the driveway, as I tried to turn & head back, I fell.

Steve came running up behind me shouting, “You did it! You did it! You can ride a bike!”

Picking myself up from the ground, I objected, “But I fell.”

Steve stopped next to me & stated matter-of-factly, “That’s okay. I fall sometimes, too.”

Okay, so you learned to ride a bike. Whoop-ti-doo. What’s next? Tying your shoes?

No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t about riding the bike. Or learning how to read. Or walk.

It was about those six words. In those two brief sentences he created a quantum shift in how I viewed the world & my relationship with it.

It’s okay to fall down. You can get back up again. It’s okay to make mistakes. Even if you can’t fix them, you can still move on. And moving forward is the easiest way to maintain your balance, whether on a bike or in life.

There was one other thing Steve managed to embed deep inside my soul. What it means to watch over, care for & help one another—whether they’re a family member, friend, stranger, pet, stray or wild. (That probably also contributed to how we ended up with forty-two cats, seven dogs, five birds, five aquariums, hamsters & white mice—in town & all at the same time!)

It’s taken me a long time to realize just how large a role Steve played in this. As I think back over those early years, it occurs to me that Steve was my very first hero outside of mom & dad. I don’t think I’ve ever told him that. Heck, I’m autistic! I’m sure I never told him that.

Maybe that will change when we get together this summer. I’d call him, but it really seems like something I should tell him face to face.