My sibling sent me a photo of a snapping turtle this week and that triggered a memory for me. When Offspring #1 was small, we purchased a red umbrella stroller to push him around. Unlike this google image of a red stroller, our stroller was red plaid. It had a very simple in design. The red stroller folded up easily with a kick at the bar in the back and I kept it in the trunk of my car. We went everywhere with this red stroller; through fields, across small creeks, into the woods, and across busy intersections. One sunny day I took Offspring #1 on a walk down a mowed path from a farm house down to a lake near Underwood, Minnesota. This was a mile walk to the lake. He was about 5 months old. About halfway to the lake he got a little fussy. I took him out of the stroller and held him on my shoulder while I continued to push the stroller with my other hand. As soon as I started to proceed with him on my shoulder a HUGE snapping turtle came out of the tall grasses on to the mowed section and snapped at the front wheels of the stroller. I got so scared. If Offspring #1 had been in the stroller I don't think the turtle could have reached his feet because his little legs weren't long enough to bend or hang down over the seat of the stroller. But still, having a snapper attack my child's stroller totally freaked me out. A couple months later I had Offspring #1 in the stroller again only this time it was at the county fair in Wadena, Minnesota. I was getting frustrated by the piles of sand. When the front wheels ran into sand piles, they turned sideways and I couldn't proceed. A man was walking a bull around the fairgrounds selling tickets to guess the weight of the bull. I saw him walking the bull. Sometimes he was walking the bull and sometimes the bull was walking him. The man with the bull made me nervous because he wasn't in control of his animal. And the bull made me nervous because he was huge and I had a vulnerable baby with me. When people stopped to give him money and fill out a piece of paper guessing the weight, they would often have to walk along with him and bull because the bull wouldn't stop to wait. With my precious child in the red stroller, I thought it best to put some distance between the bull and us. I turned down a side street. The bull followed. I turned again. The bull followed again. This was getting personal. I wasn't enjoying the fair at all. The friend I was with wasn't concerned about the bull. She wanted to look at stuff. I couldn't do that with a bull following us. I had to keep walking so fast that I couldn't look at the things we were passing. The wheels of the stroller kept getting stuck in the sand piles slowing us down. I knew I could go faster if I pulled the stroller behind me instead of trying to push it but I wanted to keep my body between my baby and the bull. Despite the fact that the streets were crowded with people and we could have been lost in the crowd, the bull followed us around yet another corner. I had to watch where I was going but glancing back I thought the bull might be picking up speed. His handler seemed to be more flustered. Was it time to panic? I saw a building we could enter up ahead. I went in there. If the bull followed us into the building, then I knew it was time to panic. We went into the building and stayed inside for at least 15 minutes. The bull didn't come in but I was still nervous about it. We didn't stay long at the fair in Wadena and I never saw the bull again. In subsequent years I was asked if I wanted to go to the county fair in Wadena and I always declined. As Offspring #1 grew older we took that red stroller down the trails of many state parks. We'd walk to parks in our neighborhood. I used it in stores. Sometimes I pushed it through snow and sometimes through mud. It was impossible to push it down paths strewn with wood chips like those at Springbrook Nature Center but it rolled along just fine on the floating wooden walkways. By the time Offspring #2 arrived the red fabric was faded and worn at the edges but it still worked. We put a lot of miles on that red stroller; gravel roads, tarred roads, sidewalks, and plowed fields. I had a tendency to go on walks that were too long for Offspring #1 so sometimes he sat in the stroller with Offspring #2 on his lap. One fall day, when Offspring #1 was 7 years old and Offspring #2 was 3, we walked to the Dairy Queen and a local store. On the way back Offspring #1 sat in the stroller with his sister on his lap. A bag of merchandise dangled from one handle bar. I pushed the red stroller with both kids in it The wind was cold and our cheeks were red. By the time we got home the fabric on the seat had split where it covered the frame. It was time to face the facts. The red stroller, conveyor of many happy memories, travel appliance of numerous country and city miles, and protector of small children from snapping turtles and bulls, was worn out. I was sad to throw it away. The retirement of the red stroller marked the end of an era. My children were growing up.
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