My Worst Fall

There are UPDs, where you lose your balance but manage to land on your feet, and there are falls, where you land on some other part of your body. But when I had my worst fall, I didn't land on some other part of my body; I landed on my son.

My family had just moved to Brooklyn's posh Park Slope neighborhood. Despite its pretentions, this nabe, like most of Brooklyn, has ancient sidewalks of slate. Over the years, trees and water damage have turned some sidewalks into hazards, with slate slabs jutting up and down like crystals under a microscope.

One day we parked on 8th Avenue just off Union. I thought it would be fun to carry my 2-year-old Emmett for the quarter-mile trip home. I had done this before, but never on sidewalks so bumpy. I made a mental note to be careful, but I had forgotten one thing: my unicycle had really short cranks. Cranks are the arms that hold the pedals. Long cranks give you more leverage and therefore more control, but I had opted for shorter cranks because they allow for faster riding.

But the real problem is that I didn't see a slab jutting out just where my wheel would hit it when my pedals were at "6 o'clock." Six o'clock pedals is my way of saying that you have one pedal straight up and the other straight down. In that position, the unicyclist is most vulnerable to UPDs and worse because it's difficulty to correct your forward movement when you can't push the pedals easily.

I was carrying Emmett with one arm, as I usually did, when I hit the bump. I lurched forward, and my bottom foot hit the ground awkwardly, propelling me forward. Realizing that I was going to crash down, I knew there was one little trick I could do, so just before hitting the pavement, I sort of threw Emmett up in the air. Then my elbow and forearm hit the sidewalk, and a fraction of a second later, Emmett landed on my arm, the back of his head nestled in my open palm.

Throwing him up like that, even tho it was just a tiny toss, probably allowed him to land more softly than if I had held him all the way down, and I've always been thankful for my quick reaction. Nevertheless, the mild impact, as well as the shock of the whole thing, brought out some big tears. I felt terrible, and I didn't ride with him in my arms for a long time -- and then, only on flat flat sidewalks. It took Shirra even longer to recover -- she still starts to hyperventilate whenever I remind her of it.