Youth Group Bike Trip

(Retrospection)

This isn't a true story. It's a mostly true story. My Freshman year of English at Calvin, we were assigned to write a story about an event in our life which taught us something.
Like my previous high school assignment to write about divine intervention, this was something I had difficulty doing. Unlike TV sitcoms, real life seldom lends itself to nice neat little events with a clear beginning, a clear end, and a lesson learned in the middle. Especially not my sheltered, suburban, uneventful life.
So I fudged it a little bit. (Oh, sure, like you've never done anything like this!). Everything in this story is true, but I messed around with the chronology to make it look like I learned a lesson out of it.
I chose to write about our annual high school youth group bike summer bike trips on which I had 5 years worth of memories to draw on (counting both the summer before Freshman year and the summer after senior year) and re-arrange a few events into a linear story.

Breaking Down While Going Up

I could hear about it before I even saw it. Andrew gave a cry of exclamation as he turned the corner. Justin swore upon seeing it, confident he was out of the hearing of our group leader. Jon, characteristically, saw the sight and then started shouting about it. I don't think I've ever heard Jon say anything in a quiet voice. Cory and I were the last two to turn the corner, and we saw it at the same time. Jon was still shouting about it, as he seldom expressed himself in few words.

The summer before I started high school I was on a week-long youth group bike trip. I had known everyone in my riding group since elementary school, if not before. The adult leader, Mr. Henrion, I could not say the same for. Before the beginning of the week I had never seen him. He was almost fifty, and an avid biker. He could almost keep up with us and was pretty fast for an old man.

We all got off our bikes and guzzled down water, listening to Jon complain, while we waited for Mr. Henrion. Mr. Henrion turned the corner so that he too could see the hill. It was still far off in the distance, but we could see it was enormous. I can still picture it in my mind. It shot up incredibly fast, with snow near the top and clouds obscuring the peak from view. I seem to be the only one in the group that remembers it like this, as the rest of them have many times assured me that the hill wasn't longer than half a mile, and not as steep as I make it out to be. At any rate, it was a big hill, and we could tell right away.

"I'm not riding up that thing," Jon said to Mr. Henrion. "I'm going to walk up it."

"You know Jon," Mr. Henrion responded, "It takes more energy to walk up the hill then it does to ride up it." With that statement all talk of walking up the hill ceased. We got back on our bikes and rode up the hill. We were the fastest riding group on the whole expedition. Being the fastest group in the Church youth group didn't say much, but it did give us a sense of pride and the idea that we could handle things some of the other groups could not. We began the hill with this confidence. Mr. Henrion was given a head start, and the rest of us struggled up behind.

My thoughts drifted back to the previous night, when we had been warned of the coming rain. Knowing that the tents were far from water proof, it became essential to select a spot that was naturally shielded from the rain. While everyone else was helping to prepare dinner, I was given the job of setting up the tent. I thought I had found the perfect spot, a flat area with trees above to give shelter. My comrades were less than pleased, and I did not receive the praise I thought I deserved. As usual, Jon was the most vocal. "You idiot! You put us in a dry river bed! We're going to get soaked!" Unfortunately he proved to be right when the rain came that night, making everyone more than a little annoyed at me.

It had started to rain that night at 8 o'clock and we were all still outside. Andrew was sent to shut all the windows. Throughout the week, I had always insisted that the window beside me be left open, as I tended to be a little claustrophobic. I stuck to this rigidly even when someone wanted to use the tent to change clothes or it got cold outside. Andrew now thought it would now be funny to leave my window open during the rain. Unfortunately the rain did not limit itself to my side of the tent, and through the one open window spread out to the whole of the tent, getting everyone's stuff wet. I thought Andrew should have gotten the blame for this, but they were already mad at me for the tent location, so it was easier for them to blame this on me as well. Needless to say, we didn't have the best sleeping conditions, and I was still not quite forgiven as we began riding up the hill.

I was near the end of the pack as we labored on our way up. I could see Justin ahead of me. Justin had not been having the best of luck this week. His bike, only half a year old, broke down down probably an average of twice a day. It was a great frustration to the rest of us, as we were constantly waiting for his bike to be repaired. It was even more frustrating for Justin. When Cory started a pool on which part of the bike would break next, Justin broke into tears. I was somewhat disturbed by the whole thing, as my four month old bike was not only the exact same year and model, but also bought from the same place. I told Cory I was worried that in 2 months my bike would be just like Justin's. "I wouldn't worry about it," Cory responded. "You don't shift up on hills." He had a good point. Justin did put his bike through a lot of abuse.

Ahead of me, I heard Justin shifting on his bike, and then heard him swear. His chain started clicking as he pulled over to the side of the road. Andrew followed suit. Andrew was one of my best friends, and on this trip he was a useful friend to have. He knew more about bikes than any normal person should. He was always taking his bike apart and putting it back together for no good reason, and his ingenuity never ceased to amaze me. This was the same year he had made an odometer for his bike out of a broken calculator. Earlier in the week I had a flat tire and Andrew barely waited for me to get off my bike before he started changing it, without even asking me if I wanted any help. Never had Andrew turned a blind eye to someone with bike trouble, and so he pulled over to help Justin.

As I continued biking, I marveled at Andrew's sacrifice. I was in my last gear, and still feeling plenty of resistance. To start cold turkey in the middle of this hill would be next to impossible. I thought to myself how glad I was not to be in their position.

Maybe by thinking that I jinxed myself. "Hey Joel, come over a second. I need a hand," Andrew called out. The last thing in the world I wanted to do at that moment. I started to bike by, pretending that I hadn't heard him. Andrew repeated himself, and I knew there was no way to avoid him. I pulled over, helped Justin hold up his bike while Andrew performed all sorts of adjustments with his ever present tool set. When all was repaired, the three of us got ready to tackle the hill again. We couldn't get started, the hill was just too steep. We decided to walk up the rest of the way.

Jon, Cory and Mr. Henrion were well ahead of us, but Jon and Cory actually turned around and rode down to where we were in order to walk the rest of the way with us. We were supposed to be the fastest group, yet we were the only group that walked the hill. We walked it together though, we couldn't have made it up individually. By the time we reached the top, I felt like I had been forgiven for what happened to the tent. I learned a lot about teamwork that day.

And that's the paper I handed in. At one point I considered footnoting this retrospection to spell out exactly what was true, and exactly what was changed around, but I decided against it. No one is going to lose any sleep wondering about it.
The crux of the story hinges around a very simple moment. We were biking up a hill. Someone had trouble with their bike. Andrew stopped to help. I continued biking up. And that's all that happened. (Andrew never called out for my help, nor did he really need it). But it stuck in my mind because I realized that my natural inclination was just to continue on up, and Andrew's natural inclination was to stop and help. This was one of those moments when you realize that at heart your true nature might not be the nice loving wonderful Christian person you think you are.
I didn't really learn a lesson from it per se (or not one I could have made an essay out of anyway), but I thought maybe I could have if I built events around it to give it more emphasis. I had 5 years worth of bike trip memories from which to draw upon, although I intentionally selected some of the more mundane ones. I was worried that if I made it too exciting, the English teacher would suspect some creative licensing was going on.
(Although thinking about it now, I'm not sure she would really even have cared if she knew. And perhaps maybe she even expected it. But I was a nervous Freshman in my first month of college, so I played it safe).
Andrew, Jon, Justin, Cory and Mr. Henrion are all real people, although we were never all in the same riding group at the same time. Justin did have a bike that broke down on him about twice a day on the first bike trip, but I was in another riding group and only heard about his frustrations second hand. (And I did have the exact same bike he did, only two months newer. And although I was worried about it, fortunately mine never developed the problems his did. It served me well for a few more years until it got stolen out of our garage.)
We all discovered very quickly the first year that the donated Church tents we used on these biking trips were far from waterproof, and every year became a struggle against the rain, with at least one sleepless night each year spent shivering in a pool of water. Thus selecting a good spot on rainy nights became increasingly important.
There was on day when I arrived back to camp ahead of my tentmates, and generously erected the whole tent by myself, only to be yelled at because it was in a water drainoff area. It wasn't a big deal though, we just moved the tent. (Although by this time most of the other good spots had been taken).
The window incident is true as well, although that was another year.
There was a huge hill we went up our Freshman year, which always got remembered and exaggerated on all the previous years.
The last part about everyone riding down the hill again so we could walk up together is pure fantasy (and now that I read it again, probably a bit over the top as well). Everything else is at least based on truth.

As a bonus, below are the written comments I got back from the professor.

You have written of your experience with clarity and precision (you must have a good memory). I would only like to see a bit more conclusion. You say you felt like you had been forgiven--what in their treatment of you made you feel that way? And what specifically did you learn about teamwork? Your story only becomes more interesting when you add application.I like hearing the voices of your friends. An introduction should tell us what the paper will be about. You might begin with your ending. That would focus your paper on teamwork.

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