LEARNING TO RIDE A BICYCLE
I didn’t have a bike, but I surely wanted one. I grew up in a world where bicycles came in one size and two shapes. They were all 26”, meaning the diameter of the tires, and they were either boys or girls models, the difference being the position of the cross bar. For boys, it ran straight from the front wheel pivot back to just beneath the seat. For girls, the cross bar curved downward from the pivot to connect just above the front sprocket. I always figured that the girls model was designed so they could wear skirts and still ride modestly and the boys model had been built to damage certain precious parts in the event the rider slipped off the pedal while riding in a standing position.
The little boy on the bike is me, but the bike belonged to Sharon Shute who lived on a farm near Perkinsville. That dirt lane leading up and away from me and the bike is the country road that went past their farm. I’m sitting at the entrance drive to their place on the day I first learned how to balance and steer a rolling two wheel bicycle. We’d driven down the Perkinsville for a visit. Sharon and her mother, Eileen, had lived next to us in Springfield during the war while Galen, Sharon’s Dad was off fighting.
While our parents visited and my sister Bonnie and Sharon went upstairs to play with dolls or something equally girlish, I spied Sharon’s bike and decided it was time that I learned how to ride. I climbed on in the way I’ve done for the photo and practiced steering and zooming, but that all seemed way too superficial. I needed the feeling of exhilaration that a rider gets at speed, the air blowing through his hair and flapping his clothes.
I looked around. There was nobody to impede my self training, so I pushed the bike out into the road and up to the top of the hill. Now, lest the reader become concerned about a boy and a bike in traffic, let me alleviate those fears. This was probably about 1949 or 1950. It was in rural Vermont on a narrow dirt road that was rarely traveled except for farm trucks and the like and the day, being a Sunday, what little traffic the road would see was already over, the farmers being home from church and all.
At the top of the hill, Mt Everest to me at the time, but in reality, a simple slope of maybe 60 yards before it reached the Shute’s driveway. It curved on down from there, perhaps another hundred yards or so, but my intent was to turn into the yard rather than continuing on down the road.
When I got to the top of the hill, I turned the bike around so that it pointed downhill, moved the pedals until the one on the right side was just past to top and ready to push down on to propel me to higher speeds than what gravity would provide. A deep breath, perhaps more, and that short haired little kid leapt aboard and held on, steering wildly, aiming his two-wheeled steed down the hill. In short seconds, I learned about handling a bike and maintaining balance, but another lesson loomed. All too soon I was steering into the Shute’s driveway as the bike gained speed. I shot past the house and rode down towards the barn, hanging on for dear life. If you’ll note the picture, I’m wearing shorts and relatively new Converse high-top sneakers. Also apparent in the picture, is the absence of handlebar brake levers. In a moment, those sneakers, the absence of brake levers, the shorts and the fact that I was racing headlong towards a Vermont dairy barn would all come into play.
Careening at nearly the speed of whee, I suddenly thought of one important part of my training that had yet to be manifested. I had no idea how to stop the damned thing.
Vermont dairy farmers all made it a practice to keep the inside of their barns as clean as their cows would permit. Each day as the weight of full udders would tell them the time, the cows would obediently enter the barn and each would head for her assigned stanchion where, to her relief, that weight would be lessened by the attachment of a milking machine’s tubes and gentle suction that moved the milk from udder to stainless steel vats. During her time in the barn, the cow would of necessity, relieve herself, and, if one has studied such actions, the amount of relief product can be substantial. Each morning, the Vermont dairy farmer, as part of his chores, will clean out the barn, moving a lot of that product, henceforth known as manure, out onto a pile known collectively as the manure pile. Periodically, the farmer would scoop large amounts of that pile into a towed wagon with a spreader at the rear, known as a manure spreader, and drive to a distant pasture or hayfield, where the manure would be tossed out behind the wagon to help keep the fields fertile.
Galen, like other Vermont farmers, kept his barn clean. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, he hadn’t taken manure out to the fields in some time, so there was a substantial mound of gathered relief product in the manure pile. I’m certain the little wide eyed boy on a borrowed bicycle careening towards that pile would have given start to any observers, but there was nobody watching and I suddenly knew how to stop the bike. I hit that pile at full speed.
When I picked myself up and brushed myself off, I righted the bicycle and slowly pushed it back toward the house. By the time I got to the front of the house, the terror of my inability to stop had calmed to the exhilaration known only to dare-devils, and I was ready for another ride, so I continued on up the hill. The second ride ended just about the same as the first ride. So did the third. There may even have been more than three, my memory has dimmed with years.
I do remember the look I got from my mother when the grownups came out of the house. Her precious little Jimmy, covered in cow shit including his new Converse high tops. Probably conveniently, I don’t remember the consequences of my exploits, nor do I recall when I learned to stop a bike the proper way, but I‘ve related this story from time to time, possibly embellishing, but it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Incidentally, Sharon Shute, the owner of the first bike I ever rode, lives reasonably close to me in Georgia. I wonder if she lives on a hill.
