Red Wagon A True Rite Of Passage

He was a preschooler wearing shorts, a light blue shirt that looked like it was made out of soft blanky material and cowboy boots.

It was his first time. You could tell. And he looked scared.

Oh, he tried not to show it. A kid has his pride, after all. You don’t want people saying “Yeah, he’s the one who was afraid of the big little red wagon at Riverfront Park.”

So he knew what he had to do. He had to go down that slide. No sense bawling about it.

There was no turning back.

Dad stood behind him. Mom was down below, camera poised. They were smiling.

Here he was about to plummet to his doom and they were smiling.

Parents. Go figure.

But now it was just him and the wagon. One on one.

They said he’d love whooshing down the slide. But isn’t that what they always tell the ones who don’t know any better? The ones who don’t come back.

He’d had a good life. That much was sure. Lots of strained vegetables and some darned good naps.

Girls? Yeah, he’d known a few. And maybe, just maybe, if he had more time, he might have begun to figure them out.

But now it was as if he could hear the Clock Tower ticking. It just kept getting louder.

A bell was ringing at the nearby Carrousel.

It tolls for thee.

“When did it happen?” people would ask later. And the answer would be “A little after 6 o’clock on Saturday night.”

Poor kid, they’d say. He was so young. So full of promise.

The red wagon was in the shade. Earlier in the day, it had been sun-baked and hot as a griddle. People had kept their distance.

Now it once again exerted its magnetic pull on families, especially those armed with video cameras.

The little boy in cowboy boots had seen other kids go down the slide. And they seemed to make it OK.

But it’s a funny thing. When a piece of playground equipment’s got your name on it, it doesn’t matter what happened to others.

It was time. One last look back at Dad. Then a few tentative scoots toward the point of no return where gravity squeezes you in its cold grip.

Using his hands as brakes on the side-rails and skin-squeaking half the way down, the little boy’s speed never exceeded 1 mph.

Reaching bottom and discovering that somehow he had survived, he sprang up and ran around to the steps at the back of the slide.

Ready to go again.

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits Inland Northwest gatherings.