Miles and Miles

She remembers the birthday she received a Schwin bike and a box of Double Bubble gum--each piece wrapped in a comic strip. Decades later she recalls her father rolling the bike into the dining room of their three room apartment. She recalls pedaling the bike in the school yard and around the block--ringing the bell, alerting pedestrians, imaging herself pedaling to where the roads end and sand begins.

Why doesn't she recall the bike's color?  Was it red? Perhaps blue?

 Later on she'd own other bikes with thinner tires, ten speeds, and odometers to measure real distance traveled. Bikes that weighed less and had canvas packs and water bottles. She never reached the sand and lost interest. No bike ever compared to that first bike with its built in kick stand.

It meant independence-- even though for years she couldn't cross the street. But what was the color?

The Double Bubble lasted for months.