Reunited & It Feels So Good

Reunited & It Feels So Good

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

When I was a kid.......

When I was a kid, my favorite activity was riding my bike.  Although I logged hours and hours playing with my GI Joe's, Lego, Cars, and Army Men, my bike were my prize possession.  My first bike was a red Schwinn Stingray with a white banana seat.  If it was nice outside, I was on my bike.  It unlocked my imagination.  

I lived on a dead end street, that had two islands.  When I was riding my bike around the islands I could imagine being in the Indy 500, or was in chase like the classic 1970's movie, the "7Ups."  I decked out my bike by adding a horn, an AM radio, and eventually a basket in the front (yeah I was that kid.)

Then the big day arrived when my parents let me ride my bike to school!  I can remember it like it was yesterday.  Complete freedom with the wind in my face.  By 5th grade, I was allowed to ride my bike to Bruce Smith Drugs where a pocket full of allowance would be spent on Wacky Pack stickers or the latest 45'.  By 6th grade, I was riding my bike to school everyday including days that I had band.  I would just strap my Saxophone in the basket, and off I went.  It was my mean red machine.  A 1972 Red Schwinn Stingray!

Then 1976 rolled in, and my birthday gift was a Columbia Light Blue 10 speed.  Blue Ice!!  It was such a smooth ride.  Within weeks I could ride without my hands.  Using a helmet never crossed my mind.  Then in the Spring of 1978 as I was riding to church to serve mass (every good Catholic boy was an Alter Boy,) I was hit by a women who was turning left and did not see me flying down Mission Road.  As my bike went under her car, I went onto the hood.  As she hit the brakes, I went flying.  Hitting the ground was worse than being hit by the car.  I turned down a ride by the women, and walked my bike to church, served mass, and then got a ride home by my fellow Alter Boy's mom.  My parents were in shock as I explained how I hit a pot hole.  I was so afraid that I would not be allowed to ride my bike, as a neighbor boy was hit by a car and his parents grounded him to his yard for a year. I did not tell my father the truth until I was well out of college.  While my bike was eventually repaired, but the frame was just off enough that I could never ride without my hands again. 

Please check out my fellow League Members memories!!
Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks
Tupa's Treasures
Fortune and Glory (Days)


4 comments:

  1. Great story! Thanks for sharing. Your Stingray rules! I actually have a couple of 'nana-seated bikes myself, and will be building one for my kid soon. They're the best.

    Whew, you are so lucky to have walked away from that crash. Do you still have both of your bikes?

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  2. Whoah. What an excellent (and awful!) set of memories! I love this post! It's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping people would share with this assignment once Brian put it up.

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