Bill
In 1958, Pat Boone, the singer, not his cousin, the frontiersman, authored a book titled, “Twixt Twelve and Twenty.” A book about teenagers filtered through a Christian viewpoint was not something in which I would have been interested. The title, however, got my attention. Is “twixt” even a legitimate word? If it means between maybe Pat should have said that. Still, twixt may be the best definition of me at age 16 transitioning from a kid to an adult. I’d just received my driver’s license. A couple of times that spring I’d drive my father’s car up to my friend Joe Foley’s house, park it in front, visit a bit, then drive back home to return the car. “Have the car back in an hour,” I’d been told. Dropping the car keys on the kitchen table I’d then ride back up to Joe’s on my bike for a longer stay. After a week or so of this pattern, Joe’s mother said to me, “What next? A scooter?” Not just twixt 12 and 20, from child to adult, but twixt bike and car.
The bike came first. It was by the tree Christmas morning, 1956. I was twixt eleven and twelve. My first bike. Actually, my only bike. I was still riding it as a senior in high school. However, the competition among it, my father’s car, and busses and subways made the bike less and less a viable alternative as I got older. It was a different story twixt twelve and sixteen. (I’ve got to stop using that word.) During those years I rode that bike everywhere.
It was a JC Higgins with handle bar accessed braking, a lever also on the handlebars to access three speeds: high for speed on straight roads, medium for most situations, and low for going up inclines. The low gear wasn’t magic. Even in low gear the bike required some effort when going up a hill. A hill as steep as Fairmount required a different strategy; get off the bike and walk it. As for riding down the hill, well, that I considered suicidal.Those puny brakes would not have held. The seat was not terribly comfortable, but as a young kid I barely noticed. There was a kickstand, a covered chain and grips on the handlebars. Nothing fancy. Just the essentials.
I felt comfortable on that bike. I don’t recall how I learned to ride. Likely hopping on and off friends’ bikes. My younger brother had his own bike two years earlier. It was small, kid sized. A photo from 1954 shows it had training wheels. I didn’t want them or need them. I am ready to ride.
It’s possible I am outside riding my new bike that Christmas afternoon. I know I’m on it the day after Christmas. The streets were likely wet and grimy from snow, meltwater, sand and dirt. I don’t remember if my mother said, “Wait until it gets better outside before you ride your bike.” But if you want a kid to do that, you’d better wait until April to give him one.
Even my own predilection to keep my new bike nice, not get it wet or muddy, went quickly by the wayside as I wheeled it through the cellar and carried it up the bulkhead stairs into the yard. With its kickstand, I loved how easy it was to park. I positioned it on our new patio to go over it a final time. Tires. Brakes. Everything looks good. One leg up and over. I’m sitting on my bike. Retracting the kickstand, I move forward, the spokes gleaming in the winter sun. Feet off the ground and on the pedals. I’m off.
It would be nice if I recalled where I rode that very first day. Did I turn up Prospect Street or down? There were only two directions coming out from my driveway. If down, did I glide along Fairmount Avenue? It’s unlikely I would have turned down to Brush Hill or to Williams Street. I wasn’t quite ready to challenge steep hills yet. I might have biked down to Summit Street, around the block and back to Prospect along Warren Avenue but I’m not particularly going anywhere. I’m just out riding my new bike.
It seems more likely I took a right, up Prospect Street, maybe along Warren for a bit, and then back up Prospect to where it ended at Milton Ave. At the top I’d turn my bike around so that it pointed down the hill. I paused, both feet on the damp pavement. I am thinking this less steep hill is where I’ll attempt my first downhill. Then I let it fly. The front wheel races just below me. The back wheel sends a spray of water onto the underside of the back fender. The bike rattles a bit as it hurls down the incline. My jacket fills with air. I am moving.
About Ellen Finn’s driveway, I tap the brakes. “Don’t squeeze them hard,” my father had warned me. “A sudden stop and you could fly over the handlebars onto the street.” I must be doing it correctly as I am slowing down. At Warren I turn back up switching to low gear to see if I can get back up the hill without having to pedal standing up. I try the mid-gear to see how that works. Then it’s back down to check high gear and to familiarize myself with the brakes. I’m sure I did this more than a few times.
I kept the bike in the cellar, one half of which was our finished room which my father had built out of knotty pine. The other half of the cellar looked just like, well, a cellar would look. Cement floor, the house foundation walls, rafters in the ceiling. In one corner by my father’s workshop was a door which opened to stairs up to the backyard. Against the wall was my father’s massive work bench. On it and hanging on hooks everywhere were tools. The tools came in handy since my poor bike took a lot of abuse. Not only was I the rider. I was also the mechanic. Flat tires, chain coming off, replacing the brake rubbers, oil, all of it I did.
Flat tires were the worst. I seemed to get a lot of flat tires, very few of them obvious. The bike looked fine when I left it the night
before, but coming down the next day one or the other of the tires was flat.
If it were the front tire, I’d feel better than if it were the back. The front wheel was easy to get off. To take the back wheel off meant the chain and gear cable also had to be removed. If the weather was good, then I’d carry the bike up the cellar stairs out to the patio to work on it. If not, my bike garage was the space by the furnace where I had parked the bike the night before.
The tricky part was getting at the inner tube and then making sure you didn’t puncture it again when you put it back inside the tire. The first thing I’d do is turn the bike upside down so it was balanced on the floor by its seat and handlebars, both wheels in the air. I had a saddle bag where I kept a few wrenches, a screwdriver, and an inner tube repair kit.
More often than not, the back tire was the one that was flat. More weight on it I guess and doing skids, and what today are called slides, didn’t help much. The JC Higgins was a somewhat delicate machine, a gentleman’s bike, like its more expensive cousin, the Raleigh. Rugged mountain bikes were as far as I know not around in the 50s even though I treated my Higgins like one. My comeuppance for this abuse was tire repair. The first time or two my father showed me how “easy” it was. Then I dealt with it on my own.
First I’d loosen and remove the two bolts on the axle. Then if the rear tire, I’d remove the chain and gear level wire. By now my hands were greasy so I’d make sure I always had a rag hung over the bike frame to wipe them as I went along.
The tires had inner tubes which held the air inside the tire. It was this fragile inner tube that when punctured caused the flat. To get at these thin rubber tubes, you’d have to pry the outer tire off the rim. I tried to use my fingers but ended using a screwdriver to get the tire off. It was slow work since I didn’t want to further damage the fragile inner tube any more than it was. I’d physically look at the tube to see if I could see the hole or tear. If not, I’d coat it with a damp rag and then pump a little air into it to look for water bubbles. Here was my leak. The repair kit consisted of rubber patches and a tube of glue. Using scissors I’d cut down one of the patches to what I needed, drop on a bit of glue, and stick it over the puncture.
While I waited for the glue to dry I’d examine the tire to see if I could find what may have caused the puncture. Sometimes I’d find a wire brad stuck in the tire or a shard of glass. Often the tire seemed fine, the reason for the inner tube puncture a mystery.
The next question, would the inner tube hold air when I reinflated it with my primitive bike pump? An anxious minute or two to determine if the patch held. Next I’d pack it back into the outer tire making sure the inner tube nozzle lined up with the hole it poked through on the tire. Now the hard part, getting the tire back on the rim without damaging the inner tube. Sometimes it went back on easily. Other times, well, my short temper was tested. A few times I’d pinch the inner tube with the screwdriver as I squeezed the tire back inside the rim. That meant doing the whole job all over again. Counting to ten didn’t help too much at that point.
Less stressful was regular bike maintenance. But even that could prove problematic. I knew which spots needed oil. My father had told me, “You only need a tiny bit, the least amount of oil to do the job.” The first few times I oiled the chain I found most of the oil ended up on my pants leg. My father was right. The rule of thumb was the less oil the better. To keep the gears meshing smoothly required just a drop or two of oil every month or so through a capped opening in the rear wheel hub. And a little on the bike chain. The trouble had to do with the oil can. Either no oil would come out or way too much would. You’d aim the little nozzle at the bike chain and then push on the flexible bottom of the can. Nothing. Push harder. Still nothing. Of course the third time I pushed, oil gushed out. Now I’m trying to soak it up with a dirty rag. I began to figure out to tip the oil can upside down, let gravity do its thing and then the gentlest of all squeezes on the bottom would get the few drops of oil required. I did get good at it after a while.
I’d attempt to adjust the brakes but could never get both wheels coordinated. The brakes would work fairly well on the front or back, but never both. One or the other of the brake pads would tend to slip off the wheel rim. I knew my bike was a far cry from a precise well-designed machine, so as long as it got me from my house to places within a few miles away I was fine with its quirks. It would have helped too if I had more mechanical ability. Still I did take some pride in maintaining the bike. It was my bike, my only bike. I was fussy with it, especially those first few months.
Back in the cellar after a day of riding, I’d take a rag and buff it up. When spring came that first year I’d take the hose to it on the patio quickly realizing the spray of water spattered the oil on the chain over the rest of the bike. After a while the bike wore its dirt and grime as a badge of honor, a symbol of the rough roads it had traveled upon. That was the romatic idea at any rate. Eventually I realized it had lost its newness no matter what I did to restore it. Along with its rider, the bike was broken in. For the next few years I was on it almost every day. Remarkably it held up well becoming my younger brother’s bike the summer of ’62 when I went off to college.
Mine, then, was not a summer bike or a fall bike. This was a year-round conveyance, the bike, and its rider, adapting to the changing seasons. Cruising on a level road with the summer sun puncturing flashes of dazzling light through the waving green branches above me was particularly nice. Still, I could get reckless on these free and open roads. I’d get going fast, look high out over the handlebars to what was ahead, or ignore the oncoming road, look to the sides, watch the trees go by, the walls, the yards, the driveways. There was a time on that bike I just wanted to go. A Jet would have admonished me to “Cool it man, just play it cool.”
Every road, every season, every ride was a different passage. In fall I’d crunch through fallen leaves by the sides of the road upbraided only when I ran over a hidden soda can. Crunch! In the rain or snow I’d ride with my head down hoping I wouldn’t hit anything. In winter I’d attempt to gun the bike through the snow, often getting stuck. Slush was okay but anything greater than 4 or 5 inches of snow was when I could’ve used a little plow on the front wheel.
As important as it was to the flow and direction of my life, there were situations in which my bike remained in the cellar. For some kids their bikes got them to school or to work after school, or both. I knew kids with paper routes; the papers were flung onto front sidewalks and porches, or into the adjacent rose bushes, from bikes. Some kids made deliveries on their bikes. As for me I walked to school even though it meant lugging three or four books back and forth every school day. I never considered riding my bike to school. Initially my mother would not have let me. “Too many cars, too many streets to drive on,” she would have said. I think those were more her worries than mine. When I started working during high school I always took the bus. The job was in downtown Boston, and often at night. That ruled out the bike right there.
With systems in place for school and work: my feet and the buses and subway, what the bike gave me more than anything was a sense of freedom within a certain set parameter. Even though it might be only ten minutes away on foot, the thought of walking to a friend’s house never entered my mind. On my bike a friend’s house was only a few minutes away. I never hung out on a corner; I hung out on my bike on the corner. I’d pull up in front of someone’s house, they’d come out, I’d stay perched on my bike, a foot or two on the ground for balance, while my friend might sit on the curb. There we’d be for an hour or two talking about who knows what. I called it “bike side.” When It was time for me to head home, I could be off up the street and around the corner before my friend even got back into his house.
Once I had my license I still had to ask to use the car. That wasn’t an issue with my bike. Hurrying down the cellar stairs I might yell over my shoulder, “I’ll be out on my bike.” Not bothering to wait for a reply, the next minute I’d be heading up the street. On my bike I never feared for my safety. I felt I was old enough now not have to worry about an adult grabbing me off the street. (I was a lot more concerned about kids a few years older giving me trouble.) I wonder if my mother still was concerned about the kidnapping thing. I remember rules about how to stay safe when I was six and seven in Jamaica Plain. Chief among them was never go anywhere with someone you didn’t know. On a bike I felt I could be more nimble than I could on foot. I did keep an eye on my surroundings but I was far from maintaining the kind of environmental scrutiny that someone like that Bourne guy might. I’m a kid on a bike. If someone grabs me they better grab my bike too. It’s what I’m going to escape on.
There were times when I was on my bike just to ride around but as I got older it became more a mode of transportation. Once I got to where I was going I’d often abandon the bike for the rest of the afternoon. When I was ready to go home I’d have to stop and think, “Where did I leave my bike?” Often it was behind a garage or tossed in someone’s back yard, or leaning up against a tree or a street sign. Sometimes, if I didn’t trust the neighborhood, I’d hide the bike under a porch or behind some trash cans. A few times I’d cover it in leaves and twigs in the woods. I didn’t have a lock so the times I’d be in a store I kept an eye on it through the store window. After a year or two my bike began to look like it was owned by a twelve year-old kid, scruffy, scrapped, and often strewn about in some neighborhood. Who would want to steal either of us?
We drove our bikes on the streets for the most part even though kids on bikes were not a high priority for people in cars. The streets belonged to drivers. There were no bike lanes, no yellow signs with the silhouette of a bicyclist on them, no flashing bike lights on rear fenders. Kids on bikes stayed out of the way of cars, not necessarily the other way around. You had to be careful.
What was nice about the top of Fairmount Hill where I lived is that there weren’t a lot of cars. That’s fortunate because there weren’t many sidewalks either. When I was on my bike I didn’t even think about cars unless they were close by. Unlike the defensive driver of today, I didn’t anticipate a car abruptly pulling out of a parking spot or suddenly appearing out of a side street. I relied on my impressive reflexes and amazing bike skills, that’s how I thought about it, to stay relatively safe on my bike. I crashed the bike a few times usually by attempting some sort of stunt, and fell off more than once but a scrape or bruise was the extent of bodily damage. Either my bike riding skills were terrific or the patron saint of bicycling, there actually is one, Madonna del Ghisallo, kept an eye out. Maybe I was just a bit lucky too.
I always considered dogs to be more of a hazard to a kid on a bike than cars. Cars came out of side streets. Dogs could come out of nowhere. I’ve written about the Great Dane that would show up occasionally in the neighborhood during my bike riding days. That dog was literally bigger than my bike. With him size didn’t matter. He was a little giant. But a friendly giant. The Gronk of dogs. The dogs you had to watch out for were the small ones.
With the larger dogs, perhaps their size gave them a sense of security. The little dogs were the terrors. Maybe their size gave them a sense of inferiority so much so that “attacking” bikes was a way to prove they still had not just the “right stuff” but the “bike stuff”.
I’m spinning down Milton Avenue one summer morning. So far so good. There’s a crazy dog I’ve encountered a number of times on this stretch of street. I pick up speed. Suddenly 50 feet in front of me I see the dog tear out of his yard. I can’t stop. I can’t turn around. I can’t even slow down. My task now is to calculate where this runty terror and my bike are going to connect. That’s the point I have to pass as quickly as I can. The strategy is to pedal faster, get some extra speed, and then lift up my feet hoping the dog’s momentum will take him past me.
Mostly this works because the dog is running too fast to connect with my pants leg. I assume that is his target. If he connects with the front wheel at this speed he is going to be shredded. A slightly larger and slower dog might just run along beside the bike and bark. Some of them actually seem bored: run along a few seconds, maybe a couple of desultory barks, a sad attempt at a lunge and then peel off back to their yard. ”Where’s my water bowl?” “Why am I using all this energy when I could be lying in the shade.”
The worst attacks are stealth strikes, the dog lying in wait for an unwary biker. This is not happenstance but a premeditated situation. You’re riding along, thinking your thoughts, enjoying the moment. Suddenly there’s a nasty little dog nipping at your feet. Where did he come from? Well, the mongrel waited until you drove by and then rushed at you from behind. You’re calm and relaxed one moment and fending off a dog attack the next. These dogs seemed to want to bite me. I’m not even on their property! Luckily as fast as it begins it’s over. Back to his hiding spot to rattle the next biker. There are times I’d go out of my way to avoid riding by the territory of one of these little mutts.
I first moved to Hyde Park in the summer of 1953. I was eight. In those first few years all my friends lived in houses I could see from my back yard. For the first year or two, my immediate neighborhood was probably a quarter mile in any direction. The exception was walking a mile down Fairmount Hill to school.
My bike changed all that. Walking down to the corner store by the Fairmount School and back might take a half hour. On my bike I could be there with my face pressed up against the penny candy counter within five minutes. In some ways, and this is not as ridiculous as it sounds, my transition from foot to bike was similar to those of people who lived a hundred years ago who transitioned from horse and wagon to train. That corner store was closer now than it was before I had the bike. Distant cities became closer as well via train track.
This is what freedom is. The tremendous independence that comes with being able to control time even on this most superficial level. And it is controlling time. My use of it. I am saving minutes that I can then use somewhere else.
In Jamaica Plain my mother had a five minute walk from our house on Adams Circle to the elevated train in Egleston Square that she took to get to downtown Boston. In Hyde Park in order to get to that same place, downtown Boston, she had a twenty minute walk down the hill to Cleary Square, a wait for the bus that would bring her to Forest Hills and then a ride on the elevated train that brought her to Winter/Summer station, downtown Boston. Ironically halfway along on this journey she rode through Egleston Square station, her local station when she lived in Jamaica Plain.
My father moved his family to Hyde Park because it was more country than city. While it made my life better, it made my mother’s more difficult. It limited her ability to move about in time and distance. She didn’t have a bike like I did. Or the equivalent, a license to drive a car. I had many ways to get off the hill: the bike, a car, I could walk, a few crazy times I ran. There were less options for my mother even though she still made the trek often. But what was for me an amble, for her was a journey.
There are specific moments I associate with the bike. Evacuation Day in Boston is a holiday commemorating the date British troops evacuated Boston during the Revolution. It falls on March 17 which also, conveniantly, is St. Patrick’s Day, argueably an even bigger day on which to celabrate in Boston. Regardless of which event you were observing it was a day off from school which is all that mattered to me. There was a parade in South Boston, historic observations as well. Trouble was on this particular day the weather was not cooperating. This St. Patrick’s Day was a winter’s day even though it arrived a week before the first day of spring.
Biking to a friend’s house, the weather was overcast, chilly. It was cold but I had no problem riding to where I was going. Getting back was a different story. Light snow was forecast for later in the day but what I walked out into as I headed back home for lunch was a snow storm. It was snowing like crazy, the flakes big and icy. My bike was parked next to my friend’s porch so I had to knock snow off the seat and fenders before I could get on it.
The “light snow” was a series of snow squalls, brief bursts of heavy snow accompanied by gusts of wind. Streets were fine, just wet, snow was not sticking. Grass was coated though. I started along Summit and was immediately blasted by a burst of wind and blinded by whirling snow. This was going to be fun.
I usually didn’t ride in snow. Traction was bad, so was visibility. Your eyes would begin to sting with crystals of ice blowing in them. On this ride I needed ski goggles. The front of my coat is turning white. I increase my speed thinking that will get me home faster. It also drives the snow at me faster.
Turning up Warren, the snow eddies around me. It’s snowing so hard I can barely see the houses on either side. Snow is in my hair, blowing into my eyes, my hands are cold; I’ve got no gloves. The wind pushes my bike from one side to the other. I’m in a wind tunnel, even a snow tunnel but not any kind of a tunnel that offers protection. There’s the corner at Prospect Street. More wind as I make the turn. I’m almost there.
I pull into my driveway, onto the patio and bounce the bike down the bulkhead stairs into the cellar. The bike is dripping water onto the floor. So is the rider. I shake the snow from my hair and brush it off the front of my jacket. The furnace clicks on. Time to go upstairs and get warm. That ride was fun. A little anyway.
There are differences among cars, bikes and walking as a means to get from place to place. Speed of course. When you’re driving past the world in a car, you miss many of the details. You see the hills but not the individual trees; you see the houses but not the styles of the doors and windows. Walking opens you up to all of these details. Not only those doors and windows but also the person reading on the porch, the newspaper tossed on the front walkway, the kid on the swing in the backyard. The world passes by slowly. On a bike the world goes by a little more quickly. The details remain from walking but the images merge. First one house, then the next; did I pass two or three?
I liked the way the world passed by on my bike. There was a fluidity to it but a fluidity under my control. By pedaling faster, the neighborhoods would begin to blend or I could bring everything to a halt by applying the brakes. I like to think on a bike that nothing got past me.
I suppose my usual bike speed was slow with options. Speed was a matter of the moment. Most of the time I’m on a prescribed route, out of my driveway, slowly up the hill on Prospect, faster down the hill on Milton, and then casually from friend’s house to friend’s house to see who’s home. If I’m late for dinner, then I’m moving faster. In rain I ride fast from tree to tree and slow down under the trees. I wanted to get from place to place on the bike but I also wanted to see what was between those places.
Then there was the racing. Tearing down the various hills of the neighborhood could be exhilarating or end up in disaster. Often both at the same time. Races weren’t planned necessarily. A couple of boys on bikes naturally compete for the lead. If one speeds up then the other does and suddenly you’re racing. Antithetical to the idea of a couple of kids freewheeling it down the street is a clump of wet leaves or a patch of sand. Hit these the wrong way, especially on a turn, and you’re in a skid. I was pretty good at maintaining balance but I did take a few nasty tumbles on my bike. Of course, we rode without helmets. Like the motorcycle drivers of the time It’s true that as you fell off the bike your foot could get caught in the spinning spokes of the wheel and your hands could suffer as you tried to break your fall, ending up with bits of road tar embedded in your palms. Still not the worst thing. Without a helmet a meeting between the street and your head was not one the noggin was likely to get the better of. When I knew I was going to taker a tumble I always tried to flip over so the hello to the street was on my back, not my head. Damage was usually slight. In a few minutes when the cobwebs cleared you’re back on the bike determined to take it more easy but still racing to catch up with your friends.
By the time I was 14,15, that bike and I were one. By that point I’d been riding it for years. I remember tearing down Prospect, usually at night, and making the turn at high speed into my driveway braking just in time to avoid hitting my father’s car. Depending on the time of year there was often sand on the street just in front of the driveway. From experience or just dumb luck I never skidded as I made that turn at full tilt.
Speed was one thing. Going slowly was another. My friends and I would have contests to see who could ride their bike the slowest without touching either foot to the ground. Lots of balance skills in play as the bike came to an almost halt. Lots of moving the handlebars back and forth, incrementally, to maintain what little stability was left. One kid could come to a complete stand still and still stay perched on his bike, both feet on the pedals. He belonged in a circus I always thought.
On my bike my usual mode was a relaxed glide, a free and easy drifting along. I’d pedal a few rounds, glide along, pedal a bit more, glide a bit more. It was an efficient mode on a bike. And relaxing. I’m in no hurry. That’s the way it was that July night in 1960 when the future president, JFK, came along for a ride.
It’s the evening of July 15,1960. A Friday night. Sometime around 11 pm. It will be clear in a moment why I am so sure of this date, this time, this evening. I had left a friend’s house and was doing my glide on the way home. It’s a warm night. As I ride by the houses on either side of the street I notice people have their front doors open, and most of their windows. Fans were common then but not air conditioning. Summer nights in Boston could be hot and humid. Still a lovely night, quiet. Except for that singular voice I hear as I ride by one house after another.
Everyone has their TV on, the sound flowing freely through the open windows and doors. The voice is the cadenced, Boston-accented intonations of the next president as it turned out. John F. Kennedy. Tonight he is giving his acceptance speech at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles after being chosen to be the Democratic party’s presidential nominee.
JFK’s voice, even then both unique and familiar, follows me as I ride in the dark up Summit Street. As I pass each house his voice is strong and articulated, then begins to fade before surging again as I approach the next house. It seems everyone has their TVs tuned in to the convention.
History has dubbed this The New Frontier speech. As I ride along I hear the phrase, “We stand today on the edge of a new frontier, the frontier of the 1960s.” Like the expectations outlined in that speech, Kennedy’s voice rises and falls as I slowly ride along the street. The future president’s words come at me from both sides of the street, right and left, soft and loud, still to come and having gone by, the various tones and volumes mingling together like an early version of stereo.
In a few houses I catch a glimpse of Kennedy on a flickering TV screen through a living room window. At one house there’s a television glowing on a darkened porch. I like listening to Kennedy’s words as I ride along under the dark canopy of trees. It’s as if he is riding with me. The houses still pass by in that fluid way but I stay connected to them by JFK’s voice as it resonates from one house to the next. There was TV sound most nights I rode home in the summer, but undistinguished, unintegrated. Only a live event broadcast on all three TV networks, and there were only three networks then, could give this sense of unity, of aural distinction. Everyone was listening to the same thing all the way home.
In my cellar as I parked my bike over by the furnace, I could hear JFKs voice coming from our own TV in the living room just above me. As I walked up the cellar stairs I thought anyone riding by my house on their bike would hear the bits of it, and the whole of it as they drove from street to street. I like to think his speech was unifying in a way that JFK never imagined.
I don’t remember if I had a basket on the bike over the front wheel. Unlikely. Given the time and my age I would have thought a basket was a girl’s thing and would have taken it off. Girls’ bikes were different from boys’ with the transverse rod connecting the front and back wheels at a slant on a girl’s bike. Someone told me it allowed girls to ride in skirts. I don’t know. The only time I saw girls in skirts was at a school. The girls I knew wore overalls or corduroys.
I had saddlebags, two pouches, one on either side of the back wheel. They weren’t particularly useful. Too small to carry much. If I rode down to the corner store for my mother to get a loaf of bread for example the only way the bread would fit in the saddle bag would be for me to squeeze it all out of recognition. So with the saddlebags designed to carry something like a thin sheet of paper, I’d ask the clerk to toss the bread into a paper bag. I’d roll the top of the bag around the handlebar with my hand on top to both hold the bread and steer the bike. As I started out the bag would sway back and forth to the motion of the bike. Invariable halfway home the bag would begin to tear. The last part of the ride would be me walking the bike holding the loaf of bread under my arm. (Now that I think of it having a front basket would have been ideal for tossing the bread in allowing me an easy ride home. My solution would be not to get a basket but for my mother to have asked the girl next door to ride down to get the bread on her bike, a girl’s bike with a basket.)
Even more difficult was riding the bike while trying to eat a bag of M&Ms or drinking out of a bottle of tonic. (Soda everywhere else but Boston.) Sure I could have had the candy when I got to my friend’s house or drunk the tonic before I got on the bike. Too easy. Besides not only did I show off my skills riding with one hand while drinking out of the tonic bottle with the other, it was also cool. You have to look cool.
As I wrote in the blog, Gene’s Yard, when my friend Gene’s family moved from their house just up the street from mine in Hyde Park to a new place in Milton the summer I was ten, I felt lost for a time. Gene was my best friend those early days on Prospect Street. He was the kid I got along with, the kid that most liked the things I liked. Once or twice in those few months after he moved he’d come back for a visit, sometimes just showing up unexpectedly at my back door. “My father had an errand in the area,” he’d say by way of explanation. It was hit or miss. That changed when I got my bike. Now I could bike over to his house.
As the crow flew Gene didn’t live very far away. Several miles. But I didn’t have wings. I had to rely on the roads, on pedal power. Initially I thought of biking over to his house daunting. It seemed very far. What if I got lost? Could I bike along the same roads as all the cars? At the same time I thought of it as an adventure. I wanted to be self-reliant. I didn’t want anyone to have to drive me over to his house and then come back later to pick me up. With my bike I could decide which day I’d go over, which route to take and when to come home. This trip was on me. I liked that.
Giving me a certain amount of confidence was that I was somewhat familiar with the route I’d take. I’d already driven along Brush Hill Road on my bike and driven over to Milton in the car with my father for some sundry reason or another. Still, doing it that first time by myself, at age 12, would be a challenge.
I don’t specifically remember the details of that first bike trip to Gene’s. I did go over a couple of times each summer when I was 12, 13, 14, those years. So this account is an amalgam of those trips, gaining experience, enjoying the journey, and being with Gene those summer afternoons.
It’s late on a summer’s morning. I’ve already biked over to Gene’s a couple of times now. I know the routine. It’s one I look forward to. I’ve just had some lunch. Now I’m on the back patio checking over the bike. Tires look good, Brakes are in order. Does the chain need just a drop of oil? I put a Bit’O’Honey candy bar in the side saddlebag for later. It’s a warm day in August. I go back in the house for a glass of water before setting off.
I head up Prospect, past Gene’s old house, the canopy of trees keeping me in shade. I cut over some side streets to get to Metropolitan which leads down to Brush Hill. I’m only on Brush Hill a minute or two before turning onto Hillsview Road. I’m at the edge of my familiar neighborhood, the beginning of my ride.
At the top of Hillsview I get a nice view of the Blue Hills. Oh yeah, that’s why the street is called Hillsview. Past large colonial houses I ride. I’m in Milton, a rich town I’ve been told. My first obstacle is Route 138, called Blue Hill Avenue in this area. I’m familiar with it. I’ve ridden along many times—in a car. Now I’m about to cross over to the other side—on a bike. This gets easier the more times I take this route over to Gene’s house. Initially I’d wait until I couldn’t see a car in either direction and then hightail it across. That quickly became time consuming. After a while I’d gauge where there was a break in the traffic and then ride across. It’s all in the experience and the confidence that experience develops.
Sometimes I ride on the sidewalk, other times on the street. I’ve been told to ride along with the traffic but at times I ride facing the traffic. I feel safer keeping an eye on the cars coming toward me rather than trust them to pass me by as they come up sight unseen behind me. I like riding in traffic though. If I feel I’m in a tight spot I can always turn up someone’s driveway or even stop behind a parked car. The bike gives me a lot of flexibility.
Somewhere along the way I’d take another cross street over to a bigger highway, Blue Hills Parkway. Crossing that was dangerous without the help of a traffic signal. Once on the other side, the riding was safer. My memory is much weaker on the rest of the ride. Brook Road maybe? I do remember as I got close to Gene’s there was a town square of sorts where I’d sometimes stop for ice cream or to load up on some candy bars to share with Gene.
Gene was always glad to see me.
Unlike his house up the street from me in Hyde Park with its many rooms and surrounded by spacious lawns, Gene’s new place was more ordinary; neighbor’s houses on each side, right on the street, a sidewalk in front. It wasn’t a busy street and there were a lot of trees. The further up his street you walked the more rural it became. There the houses had bigger yards with larger trees.
In Hyde Park, Gene and I spent many a summer afternoon down at the local branch of the library. He had something similar at the end of his new street. A nature museum. It may have been run by the Audubon Society. I remember it as a small building just off the road nestled among trees. Inside there were glass cases displaying the local wildlife, probably those squirrels and birds came from the days when killing and then mounting animals was considered appropriate. As a kid I wasn’t aware of the ethical implications. I just liked looking at them close up. I liked being there with Gene. I liked walking there and back on a hot summer afternoon under the trees. Innocent and bucolic.
Gene and I usually hung out on a side porch of his house. There was a couch, some chairs, a small table. We’d have sodas (tonics) out there, some cookies. It’s also where we would fight each other to the death. It all started with empty boxes.
Part of the porch was used as storage. In one corner were cardboard boxes stacked inside of one another. From the blog Gene’s Yard a reader knows Gene and I put on what we called plays, genre enactments of bits and pieces from monster movies, westerns, gangster films. At times the whole neighborhood would be involved. We decided to do something similar with the porch as a set and the boxes as props.
We dressed the porch as a western saloon. Paper cups on the table, the boxes strewn about as prop chairs, the couch cleared off so we could fall on it. Then we’d discuss how the scene was going to work. I’d tell Gene, “After I punch you, you fall back and then pick up that box and throw it at me. I’ll duck and then push you into that pile of boxes.” He’d say to me, “I’ll throw this box and then you toss the cup of water at me.” We had the whole thing choreographed before we did it. Then we’d improvise as the excitement of the fight took hold. I’d be a bartender. Gene would come in parched from the trail as a thirsty gunslinger. He’d order a drink. I’d fill a paper cup with a little water. One thing led to another. Harsh words were spoken. A fight broke out. And what a fight.
I’m surprised that porch survived my visit. We essentially trashed it. I “punched” Gene careening him over a few boxes onto the couch. He retaliated by throwing a “chair,” really a box, back at me. I’d duck, the box landing in a corner. He’d be off the couch. I’d toss the “whiskey” in the cup at him and maybe a few more boxes. We’d wrestle each other to the floor kicking boxes in all directions as we fought. A real chair would skitter across the room. Finally the guns would come out. Bang! Bang! One or the other of us would clutch his stomach as we fell into a pile of boxes, our arms outstretched to make as much a show of it as possible. The porch was a disaster. So we’d put everything back the way it was and do it all over again. This time I’d be a drunken cow puncher and maybe Gene would be the town sheriff. It ended the same, the porch trashed and one or both of us “dead.”
Those porch fights were so much fun. We were both so in the moment which is the essential part of kids, or anyone, having a good time. We were in the flow. Two kids on a hot summer afternoon where a fierce and determined imagination was front and center.
It wasn’t all fun and games. Stunt people get hurt. We did too. A corner of the box would slam into our ribs or we’d whack our hand against the wooden arm rest of the couch. That hurt. Time out. Drink some water as water and get back into it.
Four o’clock came too soon. I had to be going. I enjoyed the afternoon at Gene’s. I also enjoyed the ride home. I’d take a slightly different route ending up on Brush Hill Road just off Truman Highway. My house was about a mile away but I was in no hurry to get there. Tired from bike riding and maybe a bit banged up from fighting and getting shot, by the time I reached Brush Hill Road I was slow pedaling.
This part of Brush Hill presents itself as a long uphill stretch. I have the road to myself with just the occasional car passing by. I slowly pass some large houses, widely separated by stands of tall grass beginning to dry to yellow in the heat of the afternoon. It’s very rural along this stretch of the road. I slowly ride past stone walls, most in good shape, but some with stones tumbled almost onto the road from a previous winter’s frost heaves.
I’m in the shade to a certain extent from the bower of trees overhead but it’s still hot, and uphill. Halfway along I stop, get off and begin to walk the bike up to where the road levels off. I pass several long driveways, winding up past trees and fields. If there are houses up there I can’t see them from the road. I stop at the end of one of the driveways, stand by my bike, let a sense of quietude take hold of me. A few minutes go by as I savor the afternoon with Gene, my excited bike ride to get to his house and now the leisurely ride back. I feel relaxed, in the moment, calmed by a sense of place.
I hear a car before I see it coming around the bend up the road. Every few minutes one passes by, the sound slowly fading back to rural calm. A breeze agitates the trees. Sunlight squints through the branches. A couple more minutes before I climb back on the bike to head home where supper will be waiting.
I rarely left the bike outside when I was done riding it. Occasionally in the summer I might leave it on the patio in back of the house. Mostly I’d drive from the street around back to the bulkhead, the entrance to the cellar. I remember so well grasping the bike, one hand on the handlebars and the other on the bar just by the seat, and the sound the bike made clanking down the stairs into the cellar.
Once the bike was parked in the usual spot in the cellar, I’d walk back up the stairs to close the bulkhead. Except more often than not I’d stand on top of the stairs just to look around the yard one more time. It was a way to gather myself before I went into the house, a moment of repose to mark the end of another day. On a warm summer’s night with the moon shining down it was a different yard than it was during the day; each corner now articulated by an otherworldly blend of moonlight and darkness, the daytime details subdued.
In winter the corners were often full of wind which would kick up snow eddies. The wind would race along the fence and startle me as it nipped at my face with tiny cold bites.
Sometimes I thought how amazing it would be to sleep in the yard, to snuggle under blankets of snow in winter, to lie under airy sheets of soft breezes and starlight in summer.
Whatever the time of year that I stood at the top of those stairs it was so clear to me that every season was another passage in my annual trip around the sun. A sure as summer followed winter and winter followed summer, I’d be here standing on top of these stairs taking it all in. I wasn’t alone during those moments. A few feet from the entrance to the cellar was one of our backyard trees, a cedar with loose bark, bristly leaves and a reddish cast to its trunk. I liked that tree. It was my companion during the wind and heat and snow and calm. It was different from any other in our yard. For years there was a basketball hoop nailed into it about seven feet up, once with a net, now just a metal circle.
I liked looking at the tree at night for those few minutes. It made for an impressive silhouette in the light of the moon, or on dark nights when its spindly branches divided the sky above into crooked fragments It’s where I liked to look at the stars, through the branches of that tree. Neither of us said anything to the other but I think that tree liked my nightly company as well. On nights when there was wind the yard took on a different persona, wild, unruly, dramatic. I’d look at the dark outline of the tree and listen as the wind rushed around the yard, singing through the leaves in summer and rousing the bare branches in winter.
No matter what the weather presented, wind in my face, snow in my eyes, rain in my hair, I found it calming those two or three minutes that I stood at the top of the stairs. Whether the yard was full of snow, frozen solid, spring a long way off, or on a summer night in the rain, warm water wetting my hair, dripping musically off the roof into the gutters, I’d think about the day just done and the day tomorrow yet to start. Then I’d step down a few stairs, grab one side of the bulkhead doors, close it, reach up for the other, pull it down, blocking out the stars high above the cedar. I’d lock the door, click off the cellar light and make my way through the familiar dark to the stairs that would take me to the light above.
Sometime in the late 50s, I’m thinking 1959, my father bought a new car. Previously we were a big car family. The car I remember in the 50s was a Ford station wagon. Lots of room in that. The car my father drove home during the Washington birthday week car sales in February was something I couldn’t imagine us all fitting in, much less driving in, a brand new Volkswagen Beetle. A VW or as one of my friends preferred to call it, a “pregnant roller skate.” By this time my sister was married. She’d never ride in it. My older brother had enlisted in the army. Of course as a teenager he never went any where with us as a family anyway. It left my father, the driver, and my mother, the front seat passenger, both somewhat comfortably in the front of the car. As for me and my brother, we rode in what was left, the back seat. All three square feet of it. And I may be generous estimating that much room back there.
Not only were we cramped back there but right behind us, a few inches on the other side of the seat was a gasoline engine, air-cooled, generating all of 36 horsepower. The engine was mounted in the rear to increase the traction of the rear wheels in rain and snow given the light weight of the overall car. Air from the outside flowed over the engine to warm the interior during the winter. Like many things about the VW this was a less than efficient system for heat. The gearbox was in the floor. The clutch was operated by the left foot with the brake and accelerator by the right. On the dashboard was a pull knob called a choke which had to be closed when you started the engine on a cold day to allow for more gas and less air. The windshield was small but bigger than in previous models as was the rear window. Up front was the trunk. I go into all this detail because this was the car on which I learned how to drive. This was the car I drove around the neighborhood once I got my license. In order to get my license, I had to know about chokes and clutches and what synchromesh was. This VW was, for better or worse, my “high school” car.
Learning to drive on that VW was not easy. Dealing with the clutch, the gear selection, applying the gas, braking as necessary, trying not to stall, coordinating the speed of the car with the clutch, the right gear choice and the right amount of gas, all while steering and not crashing into another car or street pole, or, worse, hitting a pedestrian, was both a task and a challenge. All this while my father sat next to me guiding me one moment and criticizing me the next. Yet, in the spring of 1961, at 16, I had my driver’s license.
A year previously I knew nothing about driving a car. I was a passenger in a lot of them. Parents, friends’ parents, a relative or two. Coordinating braking and acceleration did not cross my mind. All I cared about then was getting to where we were going, and getting back, without crashing. My first driving lesson in the VW, my first driving lesson with my father, everything changed. I was no longer a passenger. Now I’m in charge of not crashing.
In the early 60s down by the Howard Johnson’s just off Route 138 there was a stretch of abandoned highway. As 128 was being built parts of the original 128, cobbled together out of existing roads, were either subsumed by the new construction, torn up or simply deserted, the fate of which to be decided at a later date or left for nature to deal with. It was one of these isolated movie sets of a road that I learned to drive.
In the early 60’s learners permits did not exist. Some people learned to drive by going to a driving school. Those people were mostly adults. It was not considered cool for a teenager to be behind the wheel of an obvious driving school car. You were automatically an object of ridicule. And no driver ever wanted to be behind a driving school car. You avoided such vehicles like the plague. Besides driving school cost money. Parents taught their kids. You could drive at age15 if there was a licensed adult in the passenger seat supervising. On many a Sunday morning for most of my 15th year my father and I would take the VW out for a driving lesson.
My father would drive us up Brush Hill Road and then down scenic Green Street in Canton which brought us to the stretch of abandoned road. It was a good place to begin to figure out what was necessary to drive a car. This deserted road was not a narrow winding street through the woods like Green Street. This was a four lane highway, the big difference being the only other cars might be another kid learning how to drive. Aside from that, on a Sunday morning I had the place to myself with lots of room for straight driving, making turns, making u-turns, stopping, starting, applying the brakes, shifting and accelerating. And figuring out how to do all of those things in a coordinated fashion.
Those first few months were tough on the gears. Steering, braking and accelerating were quickly accommodated to. Meshing the clutch with the gear shift while applying just the right amount of gas was the tough part. Especially from a standing stop. My father made me do that a lot. “Stop!” Once I was in third or fourth gear I enjoyed coasting along at 30 miles an hour. But my father knew anyone could do that. “Stop,” he’d say for the tenth time. “Now start. Put it in first. Now slowly let out the clutch while giving it just a bit of gas.” The car might inch forward before stalling. Or it would lunge forward and then stall. As I said, brutal on the clutch.
Once I began to get the hang of setting the car in motion from a standing stop without stalling, my father had a new challenge for me, making u-turns without stopping. This involved slowing down to make the turn while downshifting to a lower gear while still moving. More stalls. At least I was good at backing up. Only one gear involved.
As the weeks went by both my competence and my confidence increased. I’m getting pretty good at this. Less grinding of the gears. Less stalling. More steady acceleration. One Sunday morning after my regular lesson on the deserted highway my father told me to “drive home.” What? On roads with other cars
Are you serious?
So it was with less confidence I turn back onto Green Street. Only this time I can’t relax in the passenger seat watching the lovely scenery go by. I’m driving. My only thought is not stalling when another car might be right behind me. So far so good. I have the road to myself. This isn’t too bad at all. Words spoken way too soon when I arrive at busy route 138.
Stopping at the end of Green Street I realize not only do I have to get onto route 138 but I have to make a left turn to do that. It means crossing two lanes of traffic, each going in the opposite direction. My first thought is, can someone else take over the driving. No indication at all my father’s going to do that. He looks quite relaxed sitting in the passenger seat, a seat he is getting more and more accustomed to. I guess he feels I can do this. Maybe I can.
I inch out. Look both ways. The car’s in first. Then second. I make the left turn onto 138. Shift into third. Stay to the right. Make the turn down Brush Hill Road, Shift the car to fourth, the driving gear. I accelerate. I’m going 40. There are cars behind me. I slow for a curve. Confidently shift to a lower gear. That was smooth. The clutch sighs with relief. All the way down to Fairmount Avenue where I’m to take a left. A car is coming the other way. I have to come to a complete stop. Fairmount is an uphill grade. First gear. Let out the clutch. I shift to second gear as I make the turn. I’m into third as I drive up Fairmount. No stalls. The clutch, the gas, the brake, all remarkable synchronous. Another turn at Prospect and then a final right into our driveway. I stop. Then in my relief to be home I forget to take it out of gear. The car lurches forward and stalls. But even my father says I’m making progress. I haven’t graduated yet from my father’s driving school but I think I’ve just been promoted to senior year.
The next time out I do all the driving, from our driveway, to the highway practice site and back home again. I’m becoming familiar with Brush Hill Road, with Green Street. Mostly quiet roads. Rural. This is easy. I’m ready to get my license. Then one day my father said he has an errand. “We’re going to drive down Hyde Park Avenue to Forest Hills and then down to Jamaica Plain.” He handed me the keys. For a moment panic set in. I instantly forgot everything about shifting and steering and braking. I’m not sure if I remembered how to start the car. Hyde Park Avenue! Why didn’t he just say we were going to drive to Florida.
We set out. Down Fairmount Hill. Easy on the brakes but don’t let the car go too fast either. Through Cleary Square. A car pulls out in front of me. I see him. I gently press the brake while down shifting into second. Then the right turn onto Hyde Park Avenue. Where did all these other cars come from? Is everyone learning to drive? No. Just traffic. Lots of it. I stay over to the right. Next challenge. There’s a rotary up ahead at Forest Hills. Now who has the right of way? The cars entering, the cars already going around? I had been studying the driver’s manual. There was a rules of the road test along with the driving test to pass to get a license in Massachusetts. Cars on the rotary have the right of way. I wait for a car, smoothly go from first to second, get on and then off the rotary. I’m doing fine. I get my father to his destination. He says I did good but he drives home. I’m sure having someone else drive his car with him in the unfamiliar passenger seat is not easy either.
In the next few months I did quite a bit of driving in and around the city. I had moved from the old highway to local streets and then to every street. There was only one time my father had to step in to avoid a potential accident.
I was driving along some crowded major roadway. Not only other cars and trucks, pedestrians and maybe even a few bikers, but there were trolley tracks as well. Ahead of me I saw a trolley come to a stop to let off and take on passengers. I’m thinking this will be a good chance to pass so I don’t have to deal with the trolley in front of me. I started to speed up not knowing how long the trolley would remain stopped. Big mistake. Halfway past it my father grabbed the emergency brake and pulled hard. The VW came to an abrupt stalled halt.
He wasn’t mad at me. It was his way of making the important point that if you’re going to pass a stopped trolley, or bus, you have to do so very, very slowly. Why? Someone may have just gotten off the trolley and without thinking is walking in front of the trolley to cross the street. If someone had been doing that and I had kept up my passing speed I’d have struck that careless passenger with the car. All I could think of was that person being thrown ten feet in front of me or, worse, slammed right up against my windshield. I never forget that moment, those images in my head or my father’s warning. I continue to be as careful today whenever I pass a stopped bus.
March, 1961. A few weeks after my 16th birthday my father makes an appointment for me to take the license test. As my friends all were approaching driving age, there’d been a lot of talk in school about the best place to go for your driving test. Some said Braintree since it was somewhat rural, less traffic, less congestion. Others said Walpole. Even more rural. They all agreed on one thing however. Never Jamaica Plain. It’s in the city. Crowded. Congested. And the word was that the registry people who gave the drivers test were old, cranky and hated 16 year-olds. No 16 year-old has ever gotten a license there on their first try was the word in the school corridors.
The day the appointment notice arrived in the mail, my father opened it. “Ok, last Tuesday of the month, Jamaica Plain, to get your license.” Aside from all the school chatter I had another reason to worry about JP. A couple of years before my older brother had gone with my father to get his license in JP. When they got back my brother didn’t speak to anyone, rushed up the stairs and stayed in his room. “He didn’t get it,” my father told me. “Let him alone for a while.” (He did get it on the second try.)
I did fine with the questions on the rules and regulations of the road. It seems to me it wasn’t a written test. You went into a small alcove and a person behind the desk asked you about speed limits, school buses, turning, stop signs. The word in the school corridors was to memorize the answer to every question. I haven’t that great a memory but I did well enough to be directed outside for my road test.
What an odd experience. There’s the VW but there’s a stranger in the passenger seat and, most startling of all, my father in the back seat. I’d never seen him in the back seat before. Ever!
All signaling during a driving test was to be done by hand. No one does hand signaling anymore. You’re apt to have your outstretched arm taken off by a passing car. In 1961 you used hand signals while driving. I started the car. Then I smoothly integrated stepping on the clutch, putting it in first gear, letting out the clutch, giving it a little gas and putting my arm out the window indicating a left turn. I’d just given a master class in the art of driving a VW.
I come back to earth when I stalled turning out onto the street. “Take a right here,” instructed the examiner. I did. That went well. “Now take a left.” I’ve never known my right from left and still nervous after that stall I take a right instead. The man with the power of license over me doesn’t say a word. I keep going until I come to an intersection. There’s no stop sign but two women are at the corner waiting to cross. I stop and give them a little wave to go. Then I proceed without incident. A few more turns later the agent says, “I suppose there no reason to ask you to parallel park this car?” Uh-oh. Everyone has to parallel park. It’s one of the most dreaded parts of the whole driving test experience. “Drive back to the registry parking lot.” By not asking me to park I know I’ve failed the test. I won’t be one of those rare “get it the first time” kids.
Back in the lot I pull into a marked space and shut off the engine. I look back at my father. He knows too that I’ve failed. Meanwhile the examiner is writing something on a paper form. He hands it to me. “This is your temporary license. You’ll be getting a permanent one in the mail in the next 2 to 4 weeks.” I can’t believe it. I did pass. The first time!
We all get out of the car so my father can drive home. First though on the sidewalk my father asks the examiner why he didn’t have me parallel park. “Well I figure in a car this small it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.” On the way home my father and I scrutinized the past hour. He thought I did about average for a new driver. “You did stall a few times and made that right instead of a left. At that point I thought you had failed.” I agreed that I didn’t show much confidence as a driver which is what the DMV is looking for. My father felt that what got me the license was stopping for the two women who were trying to cross the street. That showed, he thought, both courtesy to pedestrians and a predisposition toward safety. Most teenagers in cars, stereotypically anyway, have a more disdainful attitude toward pedestrians. I remember kids saying that hitting an old lady in a crosswalk was worth ten points.
So it wasn’t actually getting my license but how I got it that became the story among my friends. My friend Louis claimed I hired those two women to wait until I drove up and then pretend to cross the street so I could stop. My friend Paul countered with the argument that how would the women know what street the examiner would have me drive along. Louis countered with, “Why do you think Billy took the right instead of the left. To set it up.” The plot thickened as to how I got my license. Those two women became part of my school mythology.
One think is sure. My father taught me well. In the 58 years since that day in 1961 when I received my temporary license I’ve been in zero at-fault accidents, only two when the other driver was at fault, one of those when a woman with a car full of kids ignored a stop sign and hit the front of my car, and only three speeding tickets, two of which occurred because I was actually speeding and the other in a rural speed trap. After all these years no trolley or bus passenger has to fear being in danger when my car is near. Thanks, Dad.
Sometime in the spring of 1962, toward the end of my senior year in high school, I stopped riding the bike. If I couldn’t use my father’s car then I walked, up to a friend’s house, or down to the square to catch a bus to the train to get into downtown Boston. I had suddenly outgrown the bike. It had become part of my past.
At some point I had decided that a young man moving forward required four wheels instead of two.
From that day until this I never rode a bike again. It’s possible I may have forgotten how. That doesn’t mean I won’t always remember that seat mounted on that frame attached to those two wheels which allowed me a freedom I’d never experienced before and which I’ll never experience again. The freedom to make my own decisions as to where I’d be going and when I’d be going there, to glide from here to there under my own power, through rain or snow or free and easy under the sun, the freedom to come home late and leave early, the freedom to ride with friends or to ride alone, the freedom of direction and intent and personal choice. Twixt two wheels to four and a whole life in between.
No comments:
Post a Comment