The Dead-End Biker Gang

My two teenagers belong to a gang and honestly I couldn't be happier about that!  It's a biker gang, as in bicycle bikers, and the gang formed up last summer, our first summer here.  The most recent meeting of the Dead-End Biker Gang was about a half hour ago when I captured them before they took off on a summer ride:

Dead End Biker Gang: Tom, Davis, Steve, Derek 

The two wearing regular glasses are my guys and the two with the cool sunglasses are the boys from next door, Derek and Davis.  Derek and Davis are several years younger than my 19 and 17 year olds - they haven't even reached their teenage years.  But the maturity and compassion of those two younger ones - oh my goodness!!!  As cool as those sunglasses are, the boys wearing them are even cooler!

My guys, Steve and Tom, just learned how to ride last summer - at the very end of summer. Their summer actually began with a weeklong special iCan Bike camp hosted by a local special rec association in early June.  During those sessions I would watch the campers and their trained Bike Buddies work through their paces using the camp's specially-designed roller bikes and then advance to the non-roller bikes with the handles on the back.  Training wheels were never part of the "curriculum."  The goal was for each camper to ride a two wheel bicycle without training wheels by himself or herself by the end of the week.

The camp buddies - sometimes three to a camper - ran or at least walked fast alongside the biker-in-training in the big gym- all the while holding that back handle of the bikes. It was impressive to watch.  By the end of the week, the campers and their steadiers must have gone about a million miles!  My two campers did ALL of their miles inside the gym - they were the only two who didn't progress enough to "graduate" and ride on the outdoor track by week's end. I don't know if it was their Down syndrome that kept them in the exclusive just-in-the-gym group (they were the only two in that group and the only two at the camp with Down syndrome), but on that last day the staff offered solid advice to me.  Have them practice every day on the bikes I had just purchased for them which followed the camp's recommendations - the top two being: 1) the wheel size should allow the rider to sit on the seat while having his feet flat on the ground and 2) the special steadying handle should be installed on the backs of their bikes.

So with the whole summer in front of us, the very next day after camp ended, out we went in our backyard with its gentle slope down to the flat open grassy area - perfect for getting the bike practice underway. Steve and Tom - on their camp-approved bikes wearing their camp-approved helmets, practiced every summer evening after supper, turn after turn one after the other (I think I ran and fast-walked about a zillion miles!).  With those first practices being behind our house Derek and Davis could see what was going on from their backyard and in no time at all came over and joined in by cheering the grass-riders on.  That was the ticket right there - that cheering on from friends.  Really cool friends!!

Practices soon moved from the grassy backyard to the front sidewalk and then to the small section of street in front of our houses that goes a little ways before it deadends at the prairie.  Derek and Davis always cheering them on and riding alongside on their bikes and even taking a turn at the handle-holding-steadying job.  The Dead-End Biker Gang was born!  More nights than I could count the sun would set and the glow would linger a bit and that Dead-End Biker Gang would still be riding and cheering and not wanting to quit.  And guess what - both Steve and Tom, many sunsets after the Dead-End Biker Gang had ganged up and about a week before school was to begin last August, the boys with Down syndrome rode their bikes free and fast right into the last sunset of summer! It was really cool!  Thanks to their really cool friends!

This one umbrella

Goodness... it's been awhile since I've been here in the blog world - I was over in the website world this whole time!  Trying to create one.  What a thing that is!  And what a world the webworld is!  It's mind-boggling - I don't think I'll ever NOT be boggled by  it!

So here's what I do know - creating a website is very tricky.  I absolutely, without a doubt, completely understand why it's called a website - it's just like a spider web.  Tangly, thready, sticky, delicate and if the early morning sun gets to glance off and shine through the dew drops stuck on it, why it's just a beautiful thing! And spiders, while they're doing all that creating, make it look so easy.  But when a butterfly, for instance, gets the idea to make a web, yikes.  

At any rate, the Upside of Downs website is now up and running - and it's come a long way since the "reweaving" of it began a few weeks ago!  It had a few mushed up, super sticky, I-just-ran-into-a-cobweb-in-the-haunted-house-and-this-sticky-thready-thing-is-all-over-my-face-and-it's-super-icky moments, but hopefully those are gone now.  

"Helping Others UP from their DOWN"

The Upside of Downs is a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) fundraising/charitable organization my family and I founded awhile ago.  The mission of the Upside of Downs?   It exists in order to support the many others who are challenged in the various ways that our own family has also been challenged - simply put, to help others "up" from their "down."  What with all the experience with our own special needs children and caring for parents with Alzheimer's and having several adult children serving in the military, we feel closely tied to their challenges and their blessings, their struggles, their gifts, and the amazing heroic spirit present in each one of them.  These members of my own family are the inspiration for the Upside of Downs and its "umbrella" mission: to reach out and help all special needs heroes, and those affected by Alzheimer's, and military veterans wounded while serving. The Upside of Downs upholds an umbrella for these three hero groups.  

Here's how we do that umbrella holding.  First we raise funds through fundraising events and the awesome website donation button you'll find in the website -  www.upsideofdowns.org (there's also information in there on how to donate the old-fashioned way, a check in the mail).  And then we pay it forward - to organizations that align with the Upside of Downs vision of protecting, caring, researching, and advocating for the umbrella heroes such as (these are our most recent recipients): the Wounded Warrior Project, Special Olympics, Alzheimer's Association, Semper Fi Fund, Travis Manion Foundation, Cure Alzheimer's Fund, and the FVSRFoundation (a local special needs recreation association).  These organizations provide the hands-on help in our common mission and the ones for which we gladly, and stubbornly in a butterfly-weaving-a-spider-web way, provide monetary support in order to pay it forward to the heroes under the umbrella. 

All right then, that's it for now - I've got to get lunch ready for the school's-out-for-the-summer gang - which reminds me - wherever you find things that really work in the website, that was USNA Midshipman second class Jack Meier's doing! He was home on a short summer leave and devoted his down time, lots of it  (with extreme grace and patience I might add) to the launching of the Upside of Downs website!  

Until next time, you all take care and God bless!