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KANSAS BOB: MY FIRST BIKE
Kansas Bob
January 27, 2009
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As I get older, I find myself reminiscing about the good old days. They probably weren’t as good as I think, but the older you get, the more of them you have to choose from.
January 1950 was an exciting time in my life, because of a very special Christmas gift. It was nearly 60 years ago, when I woke up early Christmas morning to find that Santa had left me my first bicycle. It was a 20” Schwinn “kids” bike (cool stingrays were still many years in the future), and this little bike was just a plain little blue thing with chrome fenders. I was thrilled, but didn’t know how to ride one yet. It had snowed that week and the street we lived on (incredibly, my wife and I live right across that same street, from the house that my family lived in back then), was still covered with snow and ice. I was begging my father to take me out and teach me how to ride. But he made me wait a couple of days for the street to clear, and then took me to try out my bike. I was much too young to understand how my father had learned to do things when he was little – I know now that his dad threw him in a pond to teach him to swim – but would soon find out that he must have learned how to ride by getting put on the bike, hanging on while his dad ran as fast and long as he could. Because that is the way my dad taught me! He’d let go and I’d wobble down the street until I crashed, get up crying and bleeding (not much has changed), and then we’d try it again. He didn’t believe in training wheels and told me they were for sissies. Nobody wore helmets in those days so crashing on my head numerous times, may explain a few things about me. After several hours, I made it down to the corner without falling. What a thrill! Learning how to turn the bike took several more days.
At that young age, I discovered freedom with that bike. I didn’t have to wait for someone to take me somewhere, or have to walk. Decisions were all left up to me. What did I want to explore? What would I find to eat? Should I be home when expected (that one was tough, and I usually made the wrong choice)? I began to explore our neighborhood with ever increasing bravery. I started branching out first to my school, about a mile away then to the local stores.
The stores were all mom and pop operations in those days, without the cool demeanor of the chains that we frequent today. Homer was the pharmacist that owned the Rexall drug store and Mimi ran the soda fountain for him. She knew that I liked cherry cokes and would start fixing me one when she saw me come through the door. First she’d pump a squirt of cherry syrup into the famous coke shaped glass, and then she’d pump in a squirt of coke syrup along with the ice. After that, she’d fill the glass with carbonated water and stir the drink. And the cost was a nickel! If my memories are correct, the automated fountains of today couldn’t compare to Mimi’s creations.
Clarence ran the hardware store next door and that’s where I bought my nuts, bolts and wire to hold my bike together. He knew me too, and would let me “sweep up” the place for store credit. That little store stocked a bit of everything. It was an old-fashioned hardware that would be difficult to find today. He carried kitchen items and mechanics tools, as well as yard tools, fencing, lamps, mousetraps, hunting and fishing gear and so much more.
Mr. Green owned the grocery a couple of doors down and was the butcher in his store. He had a large freestanding chopping block in the middle of the floor of the meat department surrounded by a floor covered in sawdust. I stood and watched him endlessly, fascinated by whatever he was cutting up. There was no question where meat came from in his store, or any other for that matter. His refrigerated locker had carcasses of various critters hanging from meat hooks and he’d go in and bring out what ever a customer ordered and cut it up on the spot. No shrink-wrap, Styrofoam or scanner tags, just a piece of meat wrapped by him in butcher paper and taped securely shut. When finished, he’d write the price with a grease pencil on the outside of the package and send you on your way with a sincere “thank you for your business”. He knew my dog Spot (who never left my side, leash-laws were unthinkable in those days), and would always hand me some bones for Spot to enjoy.
I got my hair cut by the local barber named Luther, who talked to me about my father and grandfather. And in addition, taught me how to properly shoot a pistol when I turned 12. His daughter was a nationally ranked pistol competitor. At nine or ten I would ride my bike to his house to help him load his target rounds. We even melted tire weights, that we collected at the neighborhood service stations, to mold the lead bullets.
The Standard Oil gas station was owned by Cal, and the Texaco was owned by Harold and each of them knew me well because I was always borrowing their tools to work on my bikes. They were the guys that showed me how to adjust my chain to keep it from coming off and how to fix flats. They fixed flats a little different than using the cute little patch kits of today. First they’d use a rubber solvent to clean the spot that had the hole, and then they’d apply a smear of glue with a brush from a large can that they kept on the bench. Rather than wait for the glue to dry, they’d light it with a Zippo lighter, or maybe a match (which everyone carried, because everyone smoked in those days), to dry it faster. When it burned out, they’d put a patch on the tire that was usually big enough to go nearly all the way around the tube, because all they stocked was auto and truck patches. Vehicles in those days all used tube-type tires, and keeping them repaired was a large part of their business. These guys taught me how to use tools, repair cars (and my motorcycles in the future), and even weld. I hung around their shops more than anywhere else in those days.
I enjoyed the seasons and Kansas has them all. Summer was an easy time to make money because everyone wanted help mowing their yard. I was never strong enough to use the old fashioned, reel-type, push mowers that some of the neighbors had and headed for the ones that owned the mowers with the Briggs and Stratton motors. Starting them was the hardest task because mowers in those days used a loose rope with a knot on one end and a piece of broom handle on the other, which needed to be wrapped around the pulley each time that you wanted to start the mower (none of the automatic re-coiling of the rope that is common today). Sometimes it would take 20-30 pulls before the mower would come to life. They usually paid me $2 to mow a yard in those days and it was a fortune for a young kid. In the afternoons, Spot and I would head out to the park on my bike, and go swimming. We never locked up our bikes, because no one stole bikes in those days. At least, if they did, I wasn’t aware of it.
Fall was the time of year that we’d rake leaves for money and I enjoyed looking at the beautiful colors and shapes of all of the leaves. Maples and Sweet Gums are still my favorites. I began riding my bike to school in the first grade and took many side trips down alleys going each way. Nobody took me to school like they do today. My folks walked me to school a couple of times, to be sure that I knew the way. After that they sent me out the door each morning and expected me to be home one half hour after school was out. Usually I was late.
Growing up in the fifties was a neat time to be a kid. It was safe, and allowed us kids to learn to be resourceful, forge relationships, and find our way in the world.
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