Bicycle guards are meant to guard!

I was a new mother of 12 months, give or take a few months...
Larry and I lived at Interlochen Arts Academy in northern lower Michigan..in a small house in the middle of a state park. The setting was ideal for us...we could swim, bike, hike, cross country ski, picnic, hunt mushrooms, etc.. anytime we wanted. The setting was so far removed from a town that a book mobile stopped periodically..well, one a month...at the local post office. Biking was a wonderful exercise for me during that time because I could get "out" into God's wonderful creation most anytime and it was a sure-fire way of soothing my son, Davin, to sleep when he was so wide awake and I was exhausted.
I regularily rode bicycle. I loved it and it helped keep my weight down.
One day I rode bic to the Post Office to get books from the Book Mobile.. Davin on the kid seat at the back of bike. This bike seat I had purchased at a yard sale; I was proud that I found such a buy! However, as an inexperienced mother, I didn't realize that the bike seat had so protective guards where the feet rested.
When I was leaving the post office, a patron noticed the bike seat without guards for the feet and inquired about the fact that my child was unprotected. I scoofed at her comment, telling her that in all my riding, I never had an accident with his feet catching in the spokes of the tires.
I existed the post office, rode approximately 100 yards and was abuptly stopped and knocked off the bike, landing on the edge of the road in the dirt! My sons feet had become tangled in the spokes of the tire! I panicked!
I thought I broke his ankle and immediately called my husband to come pick up us. He did and off we went to the nearest city doctor (25 miles away) for an emergency visit. Nothing broken, he said! Whew! I said!
I learned my lesson in one frightening bike ride! Never again did I use that unguarded bike seat.