It is so interesting to reflect back on my first bike. I don’t exactly remember receiving it but I’m sure it was Christmas gift from Santa. Speaking with my parents they distinctly remember me building all kinds of obstacles and jumps for the increased excitement of riding around the yard. What I do remember is it being green in color and having a banana seat. I know before we moved to the foothills in Pleasant Grove the bike played a much bigger roll in my life as 5 year old. Once we moved, the new house was on a step hill second from the top. Our driveway was inclined and provided a good start at the 40 yards up to the top of the hill. Riding back and forth just to make it to the top where flat ground could be found made bike riding less of a priority until later in youth when the legs we much stronger!
Mine was a smaller-than-standard Schwinn, black and white, given to me by Mom and Dad when I was about eight or nine. We lived in an area of Ogden that you might call "the wrong side of the tracks" (except that only us old fogies would understand what that meant.) The property was bounded by Electric Alley (the back side of 25th Street), Capitol Street (a little here-then-gone half-street between 24th and 25th) and Lincoln and Grant Avenues. The bike easily quadrupled the size of my world. I rode it all over lower Ogden, pretending it was a diesel powered Lakeside Lines or Greyhound bus, making engine and shifting noises as I rode. Or, sometimes, the bike would be a steam (yes, I'm old) locomotive pulling a long train through the sidewalks, huffing and chugging, whistling at intersections, clacking through the switches that were especially fine in Municipal Park, on the Tabernacle grounds, and in Liberty Park, with their fine diagonal walks and circular intersections. I rode the bike day and night, until way too late for an eight-year-old boy to be on the loose in that area of Ogden. Except that, in the 1950s, it was OK to be out alone until nine or ten at night, even on lower 25th Street in Ogden. I never felt that I was in danger, and I don't think my folks felt that it was dangerous either. Once, about 1AM (an especially late Saturday night ride) I passed by the old Paramount Theater on Kiesel and found a confused man INSIDE the closed and darkened theater banging on the glass and hollering to be let out. He had fallen asleep, and was locked inside at closing. No cell phones then, and I didn't have a dime for a payphone, so I rode a block to the police station and told one of the patrolmen going in and out, and then went back to the theater to wait by the doors until they located someone to come down and get him out. I had already decided to become a policeman someday (never happened) since my Pop (grandfather) was a Captain of Detectives in Ogden. So, after this incident, I bought a friction-wheel pull-chain siren for my front wheel (lots of kids had them back then...you had to BE there, I guess. :)) and I bought THREE handlebar-mount D-cell powered headlamps at the bike store. I mounted one directly in the middle. The other two, I took the lenses out of, and in my grandfathers workshop used a wheel grinder to size the lenses of two red reflectors down to fit the light housings then mounted one on each side of center. Now I had a REAL Black & White patrol bike! The buses and the train were forgotten. The bike stayed a cop bike until we moved to Sunset in 1956. I was ten, and mom and dad gave me a full-size 3-speed French Racer. That's what we called them then, anyway. Skinny-tire bikes were just coming into the market. I don't even know what happened to the old Schwinn Black & White. Maybe one of my little sisters got it, but I doubt it. Girls didn't ride boy's bikes in those days. Unheard of!
It is so interesting to reflect back on my first bike. I don’t exactly remember receiving it but I’m sure it was Christmas gift from Santa. Speaking with my parents they distinctly remember me building all kinds of obstacles and jumps for the increased excitement of riding around the yard. What I do remember is it being green in color and having a banana seat. I know before we moved to the foothills in Pleasant Grove the bike played a much bigger roll in my life as 5 year old. Once we moved, the new house was on a step hill second from the top. Our driveway was inclined and provided a good start at the 40 yards up to the top of the hill. Riding back and forth just to make it to the top where flat ground could be found made bike riding less of a priority until later in youth when the legs we much stronger!
ReplyDeleteMine was a smaller-than-standard Schwinn, black and white, given to me by Mom and Dad when I was about eight or nine. We lived in an area of Ogden that you might call "the wrong side of the tracks" (except that only us old fogies would understand what that meant.) The property was bounded by Electric Alley (the back side of 25th Street), Capitol Street (a little here-then-gone half-street between 24th and 25th) and Lincoln and Grant Avenues. The bike easily quadrupled the size of my world. I rode it all over lower Ogden, pretending it was a diesel powered Lakeside Lines or Greyhound bus, making engine and shifting noises as I rode. Or, sometimes, the bike would be a steam (yes, I'm old) locomotive pulling a long train through the sidewalks, huffing and chugging, whistling at intersections, clacking through the switches that were especially fine in Municipal Park, on the Tabernacle grounds, and in Liberty Park, with their fine diagonal walks and circular intersections. I rode the bike day and night, until way too late for an eight-year-old boy to be on the loose in that area of Ogden. Except that, in the 1950s, it was OK to be out alone until nine or ten at night, even on lower 25th Street in Ogden. I never felt that I was in danger, and I don't think my folks felt that it was dangerous either. Once, about 1AM (an especially late Saturday night ride) I passed by the old Paramount Theater on Kiesel and found a confused man INSIDE the closed and darkened theater banging on the glass and hollering to be let out. He had fallen asleep, and was locked inside at closing. No cell phones then, and I didn't have a dime for a payphone, so I rode a block to the police station and told one of the patrolmen going in and out, and then went back to the theater to wait by the doors until they located someone to come down and get him out. I had already decided to become a policeman someday (never happened) since my Pop (grandfather) was a Captain of Detectives in Ogden. So, after this incident, I bought a friction-wheel pull-chain siren for my front wheel (lots of kids had them back then...you had to BE there, I guess. :)) and I bought THREE handlebar-mount D-cell powered headlamps at the bike store. I mounted one directly in the middle. The other two, I took the lenses out of, and in my grandfathers workshop used a wheel grinder to size the lenses of two red reflectors down to fit the light housings then mounted one on each side of center. Now I had a REAL Black & White patrol bike! The buses and the train were forgotten. The bike stayed a cop bike until we moved to Sunset in 1956. I was ten, and mom and dad gave me a full-size 3-speed French Racer. That's what we called them then, anyway. Skinny-tire bikes were just coming into the market. I don't even know what happened to the old Schwinn Black & White. Maybe one of my little sisters got it, but I doubt it. Girls didn't ride boy's bikes in those days. Unheard of!
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