My safe Sam

The knee, courtesy of Dance in the Kitchen.

Sam's knees take a beating. They're scabby and torn up with road rash. The abuse began early this summer when a kid on a bike ran him over. Sam hobbled home with a bloody knee and bragging rights, for it's the rare kid who can claim to have survived a hit-and-run.

Sam follows rules, so the injustice of the accident bothered him. But as much as he loves the law, he also loves speed. He understood how a bike could barrel down the sidewalk and knock him down. In fact, he continued to burn around our block on his own bike, and re-scabbed the scab over and over.

These two parts of Sam's personality dueled it out the other day when we went school shopping. He needed a new pack for school, and after finding the right size, I asked him to choose a color: unadorned black, blue with a silhouette of a skateboarder, or a green silhouette of a BMX biker. He went back and forth for a half-hour. Finally, he made a decision.

"My favorite color's green, but I think I'll get the black one," he said.

"Why?"

"Because the snowboarder and the biker aren't wearing helmets, and that's against the law."