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Joy

Grown-ups relive their childhoods in San Francisco's Bring Your Own Big Wheel race

Wow, this brings back visceral memories.

Nicki Dugan Pogue/Wikimedia Commons

The annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race happens every year in San Francisco.

If you grew up in the U.S. from 1968 on, you're most likely familiar with the Big Wheel tricycle. There's a good chance that you have your own visceral memories of riding one, whether you were lucky enough to have one or just mooched from a kid in the neighborhood.

The the sound of the wheels rolling over pavement. The invincibility you felt flying down the sidewalk peddling as hard as you could. The pain in your butt when you hit a rogue rock. The smell of plastic as you skidded to a stop. The impossibility of driving that thing over grass. The Big Wheel was a portal to grown-up driving—no shaky balancing required like a two-wheeler, just pure power and speed in a flash of bright red and yellow.

And every year, fully grown adults relive that 3-wheeler childhood thrill in San Francisco's Bring Your Own Big Wheel race.

Bring Your Own Big Wheel (or BYOBW) has been delighting people in San Francisco for 24 years. The event takes place at 20th and Vermont Street on Easter Sunday afternoon. While some kids go hunting for eggs in their Sunday best, others are racing Big Wheels down San Francisco's crookedest hill. Kids 12ish and under go first (this year, they had the 2:00 to 3:00 time slot) and then the adults get their turn. It's quite an event to witness.

Watch:

The event is free, with participants being asked to make a small donation to cover the costs associated with putting on the event (permits, hay bales, port-a-potties etc.). And there is no advertising or corporate sponsorship allowed in the event—just pure, childlike fun—with helmets, gloves, knee pads and elbow pads recommended, of course.

Clearly, people take "Big Wheel" loosely, as people brought a whole range of tricycles, but the effect is still sheer delight. A former BYOBW participant called it "terrifyingly fun." As one commenter wrote, "Ya know - society would be so much better if we just did a bunch of fun events like this. It's certainly a lot more fun than the 'red vs. blue' routine we got going now."

I mean, check out these dudes in suits up front:

And every video is more fun than the last.

Learn more about BYOBW at bringyourownbigwheel.com.

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Joy

She visited ‘Snow White’ every year of her childhood. We dare you to look at these reunion pics without crying.

The "Snow White" sequel we all needed. ❤️✨❤️

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

The Snow White she knew as a child is now a Fairy Godmother.

This article originally appeared on 01.11.19


Disney princesses are a magical thing, sometimes most of all for the princesses themselves.

Amber Shaddock Roberts used to visit Disneyland every year as a child. And from ages 2 to 15, she stopped to say hello and take pictures with the woman who was dressed as Snow White.

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Roberts says the park employee remembered her by name each year, something that made her annual visits even more magical.

Fast forward several years and Roberts heard that the woman who portrayed Snow White was still working at Disneyland, only now portraying the Fairy Godmother. Roberts was able to track her down and brought her photo album of their shared memories in tow. What ensued was pure, magical bliss. As Roberts wrote in her Facebook post:

When I was 2 years old, I met Snow White. Every single time I saw her until I was 15, she recognized me and knew me by name. She made my Disney childhood so incredibly magical. I haven't seen her in person since, but I knew she was now the Fairy Godmother. Today I tracked her down & got to hug her neck. Best day ever!!(And yes I cried!)

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

We hear you, Amber. We hear you. Is that fairy dust in our eyes?

And so does the world. The post was barely up on Facebook for 24 hours before it had been shared more than 80,000 times with no sign of slowing down.

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childhood
Pop Culture

Woman plays mom's childhood videos next to her own, set to 'What Was I Made For?' Cue tears.

It's 37 beautiful years of girlhood in less than a minute.

Billie Eilish/YouTube, @carie_momo/TikTok

Life is beautiful.

Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” can bring most folks to tears already. After all, the song, created for a pivotal part in the “Barbie” movie, touches on the special kind of grief one feels for their younger, more carefree self that often fades away as we become adults. Plus Eilish’s airy, wistful voice feels innocent and weary all at the same time, touching right on the heartstrings.

Now, add onto that home video footage that perfectly shows the beauty and wonder of childhood that exists beyond the limits of time and space… and…excuse me? Does someone have a tissue?

In a viral video created by Carrie Moses, we see a side-by-side comparison of clips from her own childhood and those from her mom’s childhood, all while the song plays. There’s something so beautiful and healing about seeing how, whether it’s in the 60s or the 90s or even today, childhood still feels the same.


Joyful. Playful. Full of games. Full of dancing. Full of silly faces and pretty dresses. Full of zest. Full of life. Full.

Somehow along the way, our lives become full of responsibilities, worries, regrets…you know, adulting. And that light begins to dim. But it does come back in fleeting moments.

Moments like the ones below. Watch:

@carrie_momo Replying to @Vanessa’s Travels & Tips 🛩️🌎 Ask and you shall receive! Had to do a part 2! Me and my mom are overwhelmed by the response to the first one. My mom is so happy. She’s watched it so many times and read all the comments. First clip is mom with Midge (Barbie’s BFF 😭😍) FAQ: to transfer I bought the Wolverine super 8 movie maker on Amazon. Expensive but worth it for the memories. Thinking about opening up a service to transfer Super 8 reels to digital when I get back from my trip. #barbie#barbiemovie2023#barbiemovie#billieeilish#whatwasimadefor #whatwasimadeforbillieeilish #thenandnow#super8 #super8film #fyp ♬ original sound - Carrie_momo

As you wipe the snot away, I leave you with one last touching quote from "Barbie," which clearly resonated with Moses as she created her montage, since she put it in her TikTok video:

“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come.”

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Parenting

Dad's incredible 5-minute time-lapse of his daughter's life took 20 years to create

Hofmeester/YouTube

Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester filmed his daughter every week for 20 years.

Anyone who has raised kids knows the truth of the saying, "the days are long, but the years are short." Parenting when you're in the thick of it can feel neverending, but in hindsight, the time goes by too fast. Kids grow and change so constantly, it's hard to keep up. You blink and suddenly your baby becomes a toddler, your toddler becomes a kid, your kid becomes a teen and your teen becomes a full-fledged adult.

As time goes by, you try desperately to document it while also staying in the present. It gets harder with each kid, as life gets busier. (A commonly joked-about reality is how the first baby gets an elaborate baby book and the last baby gets a few photos on a hard drive somewhere.) But one dad purposefully set out from the start to create a record of his daughter's growth and change, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary.

Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester started filming his daughter Lotte for just a handful of seconds a week starting as a newborn. It's the kind of thing a lot of parents might plan to do or start doing but not stick with. Hofmeester kept it up, though, always filming Lotte in front of a plain cloth background. Putting the videos together as he went, he created a time-lapse of her growing up, which has received viral attention multiple times as he's released updated compilations every few years.

In 2019, Hofmeester shared the "Portrait of Lotte 0 to 20 years" video, in which we can see Lotte grow from an infant to an adult in just five minutes.

People found the video surprisingly emotional, even though they don't know Hofmeester or Lotte personally. Indeed, seeing someone's entire childhood zoom through time like this is moving, even if we don't have kids of our own. We've all been through the growing-up process ourselves, we all have a flood of memories from our formative years and we all know how quickly it all goes.

Those of us with kids see our own children in this video, which is even more striking than seeing ourselves.

"I wanted to document the growing up process and create an artistic project we could all enjoy forever," Hofmeester shared in another video. He has also created the same kind of video for his son, Vince. In an article in The Guardian, Hofmeester explained why he decided to dedicate himself to the project:

"When Lotte was born, she was changing at such a rapid pace, and I was desperate to keep the memories intact. As any parent knows, the difference between a child at two days old and two months old is startling. When Vince was born, I started filming him too. Other people might make a photo book, but I decided to film. This is the most photographed and filmed generation ever, but what are we actually doing with these pictures? They just sit in a file on the computer. I wanted to try and convey the essence of my children, of how they look to me. We don't often look at the photographs we take, not in the same way that an artist would look at his paintings."

Lotte is now 22, and Hofmeester shared a yearly version of her growing-up compilation just a few months ago. In this one, we get to see her on each birthday, saying a few words (in Dutch, of course). It's amazing to see the differences from year to year.

"One of the reasons that the project has had such an impact, I think, is because it's very moving," Hofmeester wrote. "People are touched by it because it conveys a feeling of the soul. They've written to me about their own children. The film makes you realise what life is about, in a direct way."

Imagine being able to see your whole childhood documented this way, or to have a record of your kids' growing-up years that was so succinct. What a lovely gift this father and filmmaker has created for his children—and for the rest of us as well.

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