Rolling Along
The assignment for the writing circle for April was Bike Tales. The alternative was to write about wheels.
I was well into my adult years when I bought my first bicycle. I may have had a tricycle as a very young child living in Chicago, but by the time I was five I was living in rural Oklahoma. In rural Oklahoma, the primary mode of transportation was one’s feet augmented at times by the horse or on rare occasions dad’s car which was primarily reserved for his work. Mother, as was true for many women at that time, would not teach herself to drive until after the death of our father. She was, I think, 45 and still had my youngest sibling at home. Off she went in whatever car dad had when he died. Later she would purchase a series of used cars. When she got unable to safely drive at age 94 she accused my siblings of stealing her car. It was symbolic of her independence.
My first wheels, other than the tractor at my uncle farm, was a 1950 Chrysler which truly had been cared for and sparingly driven by a little old lady. The rule for all of us children was that we could have a car as soon as we were able to pay for it, buy insurance and maintain it. That Chrysler which weighed in at 4250 pounds was built to last until it rusted out. Plastic car bodies were far off into the future. I was to be introduced to the weight of the significantly sized hood when, in my youthful eagerness to get moving I failed to tightly close the hood. Later that evening showing of to my buddy Fran how the car could conquer the hills of Oklahoma at 70 miles per hour the hood suddenly decided it was feeling lonely and wanted to impress the cute windshield with its brutal strength in true cowboy fashion. Needless to say, the cute windshield was not impressed when this full-bodied attack pinned the hood to her and caused her to shatter. Luckily there were no other cars or drop-dead cliffs to silently intone the last rites. The trip back to my house was humbling for both the hood and myself. Not long after that I was in the military and my dad sent the car on its way; perhaps the graveyard for cars.
Wheels would in later years transport me across the country, through the traffic of Washington, DC or under the body of a rather large truck in New York City. When we moved to a remote village in Alaska we sold our little New York accident salvaged VW. Returning to the lower 48 in the midst of an icy Indiana winter I, being the bright, educated man I was, decided I that at age 35 I should rely on my first used Schwinn, two-wheel bicycle which I knew, fresh from my Alaska experience, would allow me to glide around the icy corners as I made my way to various work locations. I held off establishing a new relationship with a car until February or March, but I was never again without the joy of owning and riding a bicycle. It is still my preferred mode of transportation, but not around icy corners.
553 words
February 5, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
The assignment for the writing circle for April was Bike Tales. The alternative was to write about wheels.
I was well into my adult years when I bought my first bicycle. I may have had a tricycle as a very young child living in Chicago, but by the time I was five I was living in rural Oklahoma. In rural Oklahoma, the primary mode of transportation was one’s feet augmented at times by the horse or on rare occasions dad’s car which was primarily reserved for his work. Mother, as was true for many women at that time, would not teach herself to drive until after the death of our father. She was, I think, 45 and still had my youngest sibling at home. Off she went in whatever car dad had when he died. Later she would purchase a series of used cars. When she got unable to safely drive at age 94 she accused my siblings of stealing her car. It was symbolic of her independence.
My first wheels, other than the tractor at my uncle farm, was a 1950 Chrysler which truly had been cared for and sparingly driven by a little old lady. The rule for all of us children was that we could have a car as soon as we were able to pay for it, buy insurance and maintain it. That Chrysler which weighed in at 4250 pounds was built to last until it rusted out. Plastic car bodies were far off into the future. I was to be introduced to the weight of the significantly sized hood when, in my youthful eagerness to get moving I failed to tightly close the hood. Later that evening showing of to my buddy Fran how the car could conquer the hills of Oklahoma at 70 miles per hour the hood suddenly decided it was feeling lonely and wanted to impress the cute windshield with its brutal strength in true cowboy fashion. Needless to say, the cute windshield was not impressed when this full-bodied attack pinned the hood to her and caused her to shatter. Luckily there were no other cars or drop-dead cliffs to silently intone the last rites. The trip back to my house was humbling for both the hood and myself. Not long after that I was in the military and my dad sent the car on its way; perhaps the graveyard for cars.
Wheels would in later years transport me across the country, through the traffic of Washington, DC or under the body of a rather large truck in New York City. When we moved to a remote village in Alaska we sold our little New York accident salvaged VW. Returning to the lower 48 in the midst of an icy Indiana winter I, being the bright, educated man I was, decided I that at age 35 I should rely on my first used Schwinn, two-wheel bicycle which I knew, fresh from my Alaska experience, would allow me to glide around the icy corners as I made my way to various work locations. I held off establishing a new relationship with a car until February or March, but I was never again without the joy of owning and riding a bicycle. It is still my preferred mode of transportation, but not around icy corners.
553 words
February 5, 2019
Jimmy F Pickett
Coachpickett.org
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