safety, punkin, safety

                  When I was in kindergarten, the school gave bike helmets to students. I don't exactly remember why they gave them to us or if we got to pick our own helmet. What I do remember is that the helmet that came into my possession that day, did not fit my head. The helmet only sat on the top of my head and my family thought it was HILARIOUS to make me wear it, which probably explains why every time I can remember getting hurt, I was wearing it.
                 The older I have gotten, the more I have realized how funny and odd the things my father says are. My all time favorite of his quotes from my childhood is when he would tell me "safety punkin,safety." (my nickname was punkin, why I have no idea) Usually after he said this, he handed me the bike helmet and he would make sure I strapped it on the top of my head. To this day, when he tells the story, he dies laughing.
                  No matter how ridiculous I looked, I am almost sure that the helmet did save me some what of headache on a few occasions. One of the times that stands out to me most with beloved bike helmet, would be with my roller blades. I may have been in first grade when this happened but I'm not really sure. I begged my parents for roller blades. My mom was rather adamant about me not getting them because we had no where for me to roller blade at. Our road was gravel, our drive way was gravel, and there was no concrete other than a 10' by 5' slab in front of our house. Somehow I convinced my sweet, lovely mother to buy me some roller blades at the thrift store. I think she did this just to prove a point to me but I didn't care, because I got them. I skated around for hours on the little concrete slab until my sister would make me take them off and play basketball with her.
                These roller blades were awesome until...my brothers came up with a wonder idea. We had a John Deere Gator that was "supposed" to be for farm chores but my brothers used it for a lot of other things. They decided to talk me into putting on my roller blades and bike helmet and giving me the end of a rope and pulling me around our huge yard behind the Gator. Needless to say, this was a horrible idea and more than likely one of the reasons my mother wouldn't buy me roller skates.