I have noticed lately that there aren’t any children out riding their bikes.  The only people I had noticed riding bikes were the bike racers that use one of our streets where I live now. They use it as a training ground and they have several races during the summer months on that road. I seem to recall that our bikes, for a long part of our lives as kids were the focal point of our activities. Let me take you back to one Christmas in particular where I couldn't help it, I had to get up and go to the bathroom and when I came back, I caught the glimpse of two shiny fenders and they were from a Western Flyer Bike, 16 inch wheels with horn, headlights, tail light, book rack and they even had the tassels on the handlebars. My mother came to rush me back to bed and hide my eyes from what was in the living room. It was too late! I had seen them and I told her, so she asked me “are you sure you know what you're doing”. I told her, “it was nice, but yes, I know there's no Santa Clause” anymore. I had kept quiet for so long and my brother, who was five years older, had never said anything to me or my parents, the one thing my brother didn’t spoil for me. This age of computers has turned our children into homebodies, not to mention the excessive violence on the

streets of today keeps kids inside. I know as well as you do, this can be unhealthy.  It probably is one of the reasons for our childhood obesity problem. I remember, until I got my first bike, I was the fat child, but from that point forward (even though I thought I was still fat), looking back at pictures, (which is hard to do-our family never took very many photos most of the ones I have are from other people) I really wasn't fat. From the time we got up till the time we went to bed for several years all of our activity centered around our bicycles, well especially the boys.  I can remember Keith Shaw and I playing Batman and Robin and with our towels around our necks, Oh, I'm sorry, our capes around our necks flopping in the breeze as we rode down Durby Street looking for the Joker. We had races with all the neighborhood kids as if we were Mario Andretti or Richard Petty. It was even sort of a rite of passage for us his kids to get our first bike and show it off to the neighborhood kids. I completely wore out that first bike. The bearings were gone in all of the places a bike had bearings. I had replaced the tires numerous times, the seats were worn out, the lights no longer worked and the horn hadn’t worked for a few years. I hated to give it up. All the other kids were now riding Stingrays, it was a shorter sleeker bike with high handlebars and banana seat. I remember I wanted that easy rider sissy bar on the back and I saved my allowance and put it on my new bike. I also had saved the old bike and took out the front fork because it was longer to accommodate the 16 inch wheels.

I changed it out with the front fork on the smaller bike and I changed out the pedals, sprocket and shaft for the one on the Stingray bike.  This made the ratio of the gear so much better and stronger than I could gain more speed quickly and I was still able to maintain it. The front fork from the old bike made it look even more like a chopper however, it was a little bit less stable, but not too bad. I soon became accustomed to it. Boy, I thought that bike was something.  Later I had seen copies of bikes like mine that were overdone and extremely hard to ride because the front fork was way too long and made those bikes extremely unstable and, in my opinion, unsafe. I guess I was just defending my work that I had done on that bike of mine. I remember seeing the girls when they rode their bikes with their hair blowing in the breeze. I always thought how cool that must feel, having your hair flopping behind you on all those hot Memphis summer days. I was too young to think how good their hair looked, flowing behind them as they rode their bikes but, in retrospect, it was pretty neat.  Once I had gotten my first fulltime job when I was older, I always wanted to buy the perfect bike so I went to Western Auto and purchased a Western Flyer Stingray with all the bells and whistles and it was pretty cool. I was much too old for that bike and I knew it. I had a girlfriend and she was just a friend that I hung around with at that time and I had noticed that her little brother was always trying to fix his bike. I even helped him fix it several times and all the time I was thinking that bike I bought just sitting in my room being wasted but I really hated to give it up and really didn't want to. Then one day he came home and the chain and the pedal sprocket had broken on his bike and they didn’t have the money or at least I didn't think they did, to get the parts to fix it if they were even available. I spent a lot of money on my bike and I knew he would never understand what that bike meant to me. Then I thought about what that bike would mean to him. So I went home without saying a word and put that bike in the back of my dad's pick up and went straight to my friend’s house. You know, I don't really remember but I think they lived on the corner of one of the streets that crosses  Ketchum. I knocked on the door and my friend opened the door and I said that “I brought this for your little brother”.

She quickly stepped out the door and asked me what I thought I was doing and I said this was my bike and I don't use it, you know that I don't and it was made to be ridden and not set in a room to be looked at. She asked me if I knew what I was doing. I said no but I have to do it. I can't see him not having the bike after all of his hard work and he felt so bad when his broke that I knew it was the right thing to do. So she called for her little brother and went in the house and got her mother. They came out and she and her mother just looked at me and her little brother, somewhat confused, asked me if the bike was for him. I said yes it was, I needed someone to take care of it for me because I no longer used it (I never used it) and I told him to take extremely good care of it and I knew he would. My friend’s mother hugged me and they went back inside and I left. I don't think I returned for the next few days, but when I did my friend was happy to see me again. Sometimes you just have to do the right thing.