A Stroll...er Through My Mind

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When I made my debut into the 1959 world of burgeoning innovations, my mother put me in a monstrously huge pram and showed me the sites of her world. Yes, I know that, as a baby, everything seems disproportionately big and then shrinks as you grow older. (In fact, lately I've noticed this shrinkage has been getting worse -- my bank account, my hair, my attention span. I've gotten to where I'm afraid to look at myself naked.) But back when I was a baby, well, if my pram had had a motor, I'm quite confident I could have given NASCAR a run for their money.

Fortunately, I was born into a very inventive age. Six years later in 1965, Owen Maclaren put his engineering talents to work and developed the first umbrella type stroller. I didn't know anything about it until twenty years later when my (now former) wife convinced me that we had to have one -- she was pregnant. So, it was my beautiful baby daughter who got to ride in this evolved Maclaren stroller.

Her baby carriage was a technological marvel that would have made you think of the Transformers. Reaching into the depths of our car, I would whip out a cane that had wheels at the end. With a flick of the wrist and a few sounds of "Eenk Ank Ornk Onk", my cane magically transformed into a magnificent stroller capable of carrying an adorable baby, parental life-support in the form of a 50 pound diaper bag and several sacks of groceries. (The "Eenk Ank Ornk Onk" was my modified scream as I sometimes clumsily pinched my fingers in the metal frame during its transformation. Those words were much preferred to the earthier phrases that my innocent child gleefully parroted after my first painful outburst. I wonder what Optimus Prime says when he pinched himself while transforming?)

Oh well, those sweet days of buggy rides are now gone. Perhaps when I'm in my eighties, I'll return to a stroller fitting my age. Hopefully, you'll find me throttling downhill in an adult sized hamster ball in pursuit of the sound barrier ...