March 1978

Talented BMX-er, it showed already when I was 4 years old. Believe me, you can be FAST if you want to...
It was a couple of days after my sister's birthday. We were still living at my grandad's farm and my sister had her birthday party for her friends from elementary class. It was something for the "old" kids, and I had no business there, that was made pretty clear to me.
I was grumpy about it, because I always wanted to be part of everything so I had been nagging with mom and in the end I could take my sister's bike for a ride. It was the cutest orange little bike and I got deeply attached to it (which ofcourse couldn't end any way else but in a drama, but that's a different story).
So... proud as I was that I could already bike all by myself (and without support wheels!) I rode off on the street in the direction of my grandad's neighbors. Careless, enjoying my ride and thinking in my head that I was doing something that was far more interesting than being present at such a dull birthdayparty.
I passed the driveway of the neighbor's house and thought that I was pretty far from home already, so I decided to turn around to bike back home.
While I was busy turning the bike on the street, which was quite a project since the bike was still a bit too big for little me, I saw something moving in the corner of my eye. When I turned the bike I looked aside and I saw two HUGE dogs, boxers... (they weren't all that huge, but if you are startled with something it always looks worse than it really is, and I was still little me).

Had I started biking slowly and driven home in a normal pass, nothing would've happened, but I got this terrible image in my head that those huge dogs would be big enough to tear me apart, so I faced forward, stepped on the peddles and rode like I was followed by the devil in person, meanwhile yelling "MOOOOOOM, MOOOOOM!!!" (she didn't hear me, because she was inside the house with my sister and her friends). And ofcourse the dogs sniffed my fear and started their pursuit. I had a tiny head start and I was determined not to give that away anymore (or else......).

It was still pretty far to the drive-way to grandad's farm, but maybe... Right to the driveway was a little barn and between the barn and the property border of the neighbors there was a narrow dry ditch. I knew that if I would have to ride all the way to the drive-way I would lose this battle, so in an impulse I yanked the handlebar to the right and rode straight up to the ditch. My luck was that there was a little bump there just before the ditch, on which the bike was launched a bit. I got torpeded up against the other side of the ditch (that was no more than some 1,5 meters, but it was still pretty far I thought) and the bike fell straight down in the ditch. I got up my feet as quickly as I could and ran home, still yelling for mom. At the door I dared to look back once and I saw that the dogs were still standing at the other side of the ditch, half turned around to get back home.
My heart was pounding in my throat like crazy and I was huffing and puffing like an old locomotive, but I made it. And even if I was still scared I felt an enormous victory, because I outran those monsters...