Reader's Praise

“...a delight to the heart...
I (was) laughing out loud.”
– Don H.

“...a charming memoir...
a masterful job!”
– Judy L.

“I was mesmerized.”
– Tom S.

“Well crafted and entertaining.”
– David E.

“Inspiring!”
– Mikala W.

Life is like a ten speed bicycle.
Most of us have gears we never use.
-Linus from the comic strip “PEANUTS”
by Charles M. Schulz (May 29, 1981)

In spite of how poor a family might be, the one undeniable possession a boy had to have in the 1950s was a bicycle. Our bicycles were our chariots to adventure.

My first bicycle was an old fat-tire Schwinn, and it was my most prized possession. Uncle Johnny gave it to me one day, and I thereafter accepted one of my earliest beliefs in life: miracles do happen. My brother received his first bike on his sixth birthday, also from Uncle Johnny. Both of our bikes looked like they had been through the Second World War, and somehow had survived.

At one time in its life my bike had been red in color, but that was a millennium before it came into my possession. Now it was scratched and scarred, with dappled rusted metal here and there. It was not a full-sized bike with 26” tires, but it worked fine for me. The wheels were straight and the sprockets and chain were in great shape. The bike had a fender over the back wheel, but the front wheel fender was missing. This was a problem when I rode in the Seattle rain because the front tire threw water up onto my clothes. I often came home with a dirty, vertical stripe bisecting my body, much to the wrath of my mother. It cost money to wash clothes. I had an abundance of mechanical skills and took pride in maintaining that bike to the best of my ability. My second and third most trusted possessions were my crescent wrench and a can of 3-IN-ONE ® oil.

One aspect of owning bicycles in the projects was the existence of “the Code,” and every kid, both girls and boys, in our neighborhoods knew of the Code and its meaning. Since living space was always at a premium in the projects, there was no place to park the bicycles inside the house. And, since every boy had a bike, and since nobody had any spare money for extravagances like locks, and also since everybody knew everybody else’s bike, we all just dropped them on the ground outside our front door stoops.

The unwritten code of conduct was that a guy’s bike was sacred, regardless of how beat up it might be. The rule was that you left another guy’s bike alone. It was much like the general understanding in the old Westerns where one cowboy never bothered another cowboy’s horse. The result was a hangin’, without due process. “Miranda Rights” did not exist in the Old West! The same was true in the projects.

Our bikes were different from bicycles of today in that they were very simply constructed. They had one large pedal sprocket, one rear wheel sprocket, and only one gear. That gear was “forward.” They had no shifters, derailers, or linkages. They also had no handlebar brakes. The brakes were applied by the pedals. If you wanted to go forward, you pushed the pedals around in a forward direction. If you wanted to stop, you applied pressure to the pedals in a reverse direction and a brake was applied to the rear wheel. That was it; very simple and straightforward.

But I longed for another. I had lascivious dreams for the ultimate machine: a Schwinn Phantom with “Typhoon Cord” white sidewall tires, a shock absorbing spring above the front wheel forks, shiny-chromed wheel covers with a light built into the front wheel fender, a rack over the back wheel, and wide, shiny-chromed handlebars. That bike had everything and was the epitome of riches to me. I knew I would have “arrived,” if and when I could ever buy one of those, and brand new too, no more second (or more) hand for me. But my lusts were unfulfilled and I never was able to acquire one during the years when it was important to me.

There was one other standard accessory that was associated with every bicycle and every bike rider, regardless of how poor one might be. And that, almost magical accessory, was a deck of playing cards. What, you might ask, is the connection? Well, from our view, bikes were not meant to be objects of stealth—they were our imaginary motorcycles, fighter aircraft, race cars, and hydroplanes. Bicycles were much more than mechanical conveniences to provide transportation. They were also extensions of our imaginations leading to adventures. And what all of those vehicles possessed was noise. There is just something about young boys and noise—they go together! It was difficult for us, at our age, to do anything quietly—just ask our moms. Riding our bikes was no exception.

The cards were used to make noise, and make it they did! The way this worked was that we attached one card to each side of the bars that held the back wheel fenders onto the bike. This was accomplished by using a spring-loaded wooden clip that mom used for hanging clothes on the outside clothesline for drying. Thus the back wheel had two cards stuck in between the wheel spokes, which then flapped against the spokes as the bike was ridden.

The flapping produced the sound of our imaginary engines. The faster we rode, and the newer the cards, the more noise. It was so simple! Our heaven was having new cards in the spokes, and going down a hill as fast as we could pedal, with both gravity and the wind at our backs adding to our speed (and noise production). I always imagined my red marauder as being a P-51 Mustang fighter skimming across the treetops spraying machine gun bullets at will against the imaginary enemy ground forces below.

We cherished our own set of cards and used them, two at a time, until we had worn through the whole deck. We then prayed for another new deck to appear as a surprise gift at our birthdays or Christmas. The cards were never consumed at random; there was a preferred order of use. The most valuable cards in the deck were the Kings—black over red always. Then came the Jacks, then the Queens, (I know now that Queens are above Jacks, but when we were young boys, that was not the case), then all of the numbers.

The fact that I was a “Jack” meant those cards were even more precious to me. I saved my Jacks for the most important battle-winning sorties, when I needed the most “horsepower” (noise) to pull out of the dive just before I launched the giant bomb under my fuselage. That bomb blew up the last remaining bridge, thus trapping the enemy and thwarting their escape across the river. Good prevailed, and our side was saved—all because of those two playing cards jammed between my wheel spokes in ways that old man Schwinn never designed.

It was all made possible with our playing cards . . . and our imaginations.