Learning to Ride and Making an Old Bike Shine

Ours was a world of bicycles. Bikes were our life in the Forties. I never had a new one, but I made mine look new by painting it over and over. I’m sure it looked hand-painted but I thought it was just fine and I loved it to death. You may imagine the kids with new bikes probably lorded it over us, but kids weren’t like that in those days. Daddy taught me to ride my bike in less than ten minutes on the dirt road in front of the house and bragged to John Reichenberg, who had been watching us from his rutabaga patch, that I was the fastest learner he’d ever seen. What Daddy didn’t know was that I had taught myself on Iris’ bike by hanging on to the tomato-ripening shelf on the north side of the garage. Bobby would just give me a push to get me started as I let go of the shelf. Next, I’d fall over. Eventually, I got it. I never bothered to tell Dad I’d been practicing. We were in heaven whenever they regraveled our roads, because we could spit rocks by starting our bikes out with a powerful first peddle. You’d get one peddle all the way up, stand up on it, and then really lunge downward quickly with your stronger leg and take off with rocks flying. Stopping in the gravel was more dramatic and a real art form. You would brake and let the back wheel slide out in a circular motion, putting your stabilizing leg down to the ground at the very last possible moment. This made a great noise and gravel sprayed everywhere. When you got good at it, you could turn your bike completely around and end up facing in the same direction you had started from. I easily learned to ride without holding the handlebars, but I attempted standing up on the seat only once (like Ray Rohrer could), and ended up with a knee full of gravel. We never really went very far from home on our bikes. We did ride up to Fredrickson’s Market on 23rd Avenue to get Mom a pack of Marvel cigarettes pretty often. We never got extra money for a pop or candy; just the twenty cents for the pack of cigarettes. A penny apiece. They never refused to sell cigarettes to kids in those days. Didn’t even need a note. When Mom’s “cigs” went from twenty to twenty-two cents a pack, Mom said she was going to quit. Right. I was allowed to ride my bike the mile or so to Coolidge Junior High School. There was a sea of bikes in huge bike racks out back. No need to lock your bike because none was ever stolen. I dreaded riding my bike back home though, because I had to go by the Forrester’s two huge police dogs, who always chased me and barked ferociously. I tried to find a way around them, but that was the only route I could take unless I lifted my bike over several fences and walked it through the ravine in Ferry’s Woods. I used to keep a pocketful of kitchen matches, which I’d light and throw at the dogs because I’d heard animals feared fire. They didn’t even notice. Finally, Dad went over there and complained that the dogs bit at me and ripped my good pants. Forrester said he needed the dogs to protect the stacks of soda pop he stored in his front yard for his distributorship. Dad told him if he didn’t keep the dogs tied up he’d put rags on the wheels of his car, and the dogs would break their necks when they chased and bit them. The dogs were fenced in after that. Sometimes we would ride our bikes at night in huge groups. This made Mom a nervous wreck, but Daddy always said, “The boys have to sow their wild oats, Ethel; leave them be,” which I never understood; but he said that a lot, especially when Mom said no to a new adventure Daddy would be planning for Bob or for me. To appease her, Daddy got me a bicycle light that ran off a little generator connected to the front wheel rim. The faster you went, the brighter it shined and when you stopped, it would stay lit then fade out in a minute or two. I also had four different bells and a treasured ooga horn on my bike’s handlebar. The carrier in the back was for giving rides, and I never put a basket in front because only girls did that, or so the bike myth went. Some kids put playing cards where the spokes would strike them to create a motor-like sound. Daddy made mine of thin steel bands, which were very loud and convincing as a motor, but eventually they had to come off when they started to wear through the spokes. Bob’s bike had a chain guard, which I envied. Mine didn’t. I can’t remember how many pairs of pants got chewed up in the chain, but thinking about it reminds me of the image of all these young boys walking around with their right pants leg rolled up. Some of the wimpier kids had a metal band that fitted around their trouser leg to hold it away from the chain.