One of the most unique things about spring in the northeast is the rich smell of the dirt. Not dirt, really, but some combination of land, rain, and air. It is the smell of the earth soaking in water and sun. It is the smell of wet leaves, of damp wood, of a thick, smoky compost. During springtime, northern New York resembles a chilly, foggy bog for awhile. We call it spring. And the smell is one of my favorites because it brings me back to the hopes and joys of my youth and it also reminds me of the warm days to come, and the longer hours of light, and the impermanence of every season.
It was never “really” springtime when I grew up until we took our first bike ride. The bikes were always stored in the rusty metal shed in the back yard around the time of the first snow fall. The last bike ride of the fall left memories of cold fingers, red cheeks, and an over all stiffness that seemed to effect not only my body, but every moveable part on my bicycle. Riding in cold weather was never actually enjoyable, it only served a purpose – get from point A to point B without getting frost bitten.
I would look out at the old metal shed occasionally during the long winter months. I would daydream about the warm weather to come, and coasting around on my bike – warm wind blowing through my hair, and sunshine on my face. Sometimes my father and I would have to trudge through the snow in the back yard to the shed with the long metal snow rake to pull snow off the shed’s roof before it collapsed from the weight. At those times, if the doors were not completely frozen, my father would pull open the shed doors and I could see my bike along with all the other seemingly useless items at that time of year: lawnmower, birdbath, lawn chairs, croquet set, etc… It was weird to see them all sitting out there – cold and useless, waiting.
I’m not sure how my parents decided when it was time to take the bikes out in the spring. Looking back, it was probably when my sister and I became absolutely intolerable from lack of outside play time. In this section of the country, early spring, which is generally around March, is one of the few times when parents and teachers do not allow kids to go outside to play. All other seasons are fair game. 20 degrees below zero – fine – just bundle them up. 90 degrees with no shade? Just leave the water to the hose turned on and slather them up real good with suntan lotion! But early spring in the northeast? Just keep them inside. Now I understand that it is simply not worth it. The ground is a saturated, muddy sponge, and for every 10 minutes of play time there is a 30 minute clean up process required. Besides that, kids do not really know what to do in these conditions. The terrain of the back yard or playground is completely different than at any other time of the year. It is a series of small dirty lakes, arctic ice caps, and yellow, brownish land formations. The internal programming of children seems not to have changed much about how to negotiate this setting. They invariably go for the puddles. The fact that they will get wet, cold, dirty, and uncomfortable does not seem to download fast enough to stop this internal programming. If you are anywhere near this phenomena, you will first hear nothing at first – an extended silence as they survey the surroundings. This is followed by intense screaming, yelling and a general garbled hysteria. If you chance to glance out at this time, you are likely to see mud, snow, and water flying in all directions and raining down throughout the vicinity. The next sight is often strange looking creatures knocking on the door, shivering and looking forlorn. Dirty little things. If you can see their faces through the grime, you notice that they look genuinely confused about how things went so wrong so quickly.
But eventually the waters recede, the ice caps melt, and the yellow brownish areas turn slowly toward green. More importantly, parents have had it “and so have the kids,” with being inside. I never remember having to ask if I could ride my bike – it just happened. It was probably a domino effect that precipitated the first ride of spring on our street, which offered the ideal conditions for bike riding: it was a dead end, so all traffic that came down the street lived there; most of the families had children, so motorists were alert and cautious and us kids made up our own “neighborhood watch,”; and the street was mostly flat and well graded, so that the majority of spring puddles and mud were to the sides of the pavement, rather than in the middle of it, hence no clean up for the adults. I don’t remember any of my neighbors having fences, which seems odd now because most of the houses had pools. Either the laws about safety, fences, and pools came along later – or they were simply ignored on our street. But the lack of fences meant that everyone could see what everyone else was doing in the back yard “which all contained the obligatory metal shed,” and the annual first bike ride for us kids was most likely set off by one parent walking out, opening up the shed, and liberating a bicycle to an anxious waiting child.
However it happened, it was ALWAYS a wonderful day. A memorable day. A day when we felt more mature and responsible than we had during the winter. Bikes offered an opportunity to travel – fast and free – granted, most of us were only allowed to go from the dead end portion of the street to old Mrs. Water’s house, but it felt wonderfully liberating to have such freedom. Mrs. Water was one of the few people on the street that did not have children. In fact, we kids doubted she had any family besides her cat, which was black and had only one eye. We had decided that the parents had picked her house as the biking cut off point because we all believed that she spent most of her time looking out the window, watching all the children, and looking for one to boil up in her cauldron. Not only did we not ride past her house, we usually stayed at least two houses away.
It was on one of these days – warm, sunny, and free, that I first realized my family’s true social status from the outside looking in. I was riding my new bike at the time – that is, it was new to me. My sister had been handed down a larger bike from our cousins, and I was given hers. My father had pulled out all of the bikes, and had adjusted them accordingly. He lowered the seat so that, using my tip toes, I could balance successfully from the front edge of her banana seat. It helped that there was no cross bar from the seat to the handle bars, so that I could step over easily before getting onto the seat – my mother had made a point to tell me how convenient that was and how much easier that would make it for me to ride. She had also come up with a very clever solution when I mentioned to her that the large pink and yellow flowers on the banana seat might indicate to others that this was still – despite the recent change of ownership – a girl’s bike. My mom’s suggestion was to use my collection of stickers that I had been saving from my grandparent’s Wonder Bread packages to cover up the flowers. My mom was going to college at the time, and I could not believe the extent of her knowledge and problem solving skills – what a great idea! So I plastered each and every flower with a Snoopy, or a Charlie Brown, or Linus “I left Lucy and Peppermint Patty off, just to make sure that the bike stayed “masculine,” and I headed down the driveway to find my friends.
For awhile, all was well – most of the neighborhood kids were riding their same bikes from last year, and some had moved up to their older sibling’s hand me downs, just as I had done. A few kids had new bikes, and we told them how cool their bikes were. Some of my friends liked my stickers – especially the one that I had put in the middle of the seat – Snoopy in fierce combat on his dog house as the W.W. I. Flying Ace. We pedaled, and laughed, and rode up and down the street. And then Glenn showed up. Glenn was two years older than me, and he was a big, unhappy boy with dark eyes and millions of freckles. Glenn was an only child. And he was on his brand new bike. A Huffy. Only it looked like a motorcycle. It really did. It had a plastic gas tank that was mounted on the cross bar with a cap that screwed on and off. The cap actually screwed on and off! I wondered if he would fill it with Kool Aid and drink it through a straw as he rode. That’s what I would have done. The bike also had a long black seat – not really a banana seat, because it did not taper towards the front – but a long black leather “maybe pleather” seat and near the back of the seat rose the coolest chrome bars that went up over the riders head and formed a loop before going back down the other side – chopper style! We had never seen a bike like this before, and we all sat amazed and in awe as he rode up. It was the most ingenious technology I had witnessed in my entire life, and I thought for sure that someone who had gone to college, like my mom, must have been responsible for it!
“Woah! Glenn! That is so cool!” Someone in our crowd said.
“I know.” Glenn said.
“When did you get it?” Another voice asked.
“My Dad just brought it home for me. He bought it out of state.” Glenn explained.
“Is it a birthday gift?” Someone else asked.
“No way,” Glen replied, “ I want a mini bike for my birthday. My old man just saw this and bought it for me.
We all took a moment to digest that information. What a windfall. It’s origin clarified a few things. Something this rare, and beautiful, and magnificent would have to have come from “out of state”. New York simply did not have the technological advances to produce something like this. I wondered where exactly it came from, but I doubted that Glenn would give up that kind of information too easily. I thought I would warm him up first.
“Does the gas cap screw off?” I queried. It was clear that it did – he had already screwed it on and off several times, but I didn’t know what else to ask.
“No stupid,” He replied, “I’m just doing this by magic! By the way, when did you start riding girl’s bikes?”
I could feel my heart start to pound and my armpits start to sweat. “This is my bike.” I said, weakly, looking at the ground and desperately trying to position my leg over a pink flower petal that was peeking out from under a sticker of Linus and his blanket.
“Oh, that’s YOUR bike, now,” Glenn cackled, “Could your parents even afford those lame stickers on the seat, or are those hand me downs from somewhere, too?”
Now all eyes were looking downwards. We were all used to Glenn’s snide and thoughtless comments, but this time he had clearly crossed a line. Everyone sensed it. No one spoke.
Finally, my sister spoke up: “Glenn,” she said, “you’re a real jerk.”
And that was that. The moment was over, the crowd began to disperse, to roll off and pedal slowly in various directions back to our houses. Normally I would wash my bike off with the hose after the first few rides of spring, and I would meticulously wipe the chrome rims clean with a rag, going between each spoke, shining my ride up for the next adventure. Today I just parked it in the garage, next to the bright red station wagon and went into the house. I tried not to look at the bike, especially at the seat, as I left it.
Hiding my internal emotions has never been a strong skill for me. Within a minute of entering the house, my mother was asking “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you O.K?”
“I’m fine.” I muttered. And I was. I knew that I was bothered, upset, hurt, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t sure what had just changed for me. My sister was right. Glenn was a jerk. He had said many stupid things before. So why was this bothering me? And what did he mean by my parents couldn’t AFFORD it?
The truth came out within 5 minutes of being home. My sister spilled the beans. She told them the whole story, with little embellishment and a great impersonation of Glenn, being a jerk, high and mighty astride his new bike. It made me smile to see her do it, and to think about how she spoke up to him. My parents didn’t say much, my father just chortled: “Out of state! I bet!” They both exchanged silent glances when the story was over and assured us that what other people say and do says more about them then it does about us. We knew this, though. They had told us before. The night came and went.
The next day was a Saturday. After breakfast, my Mother told us we were “taking a ride”. This was upsetting news. It was another warm spring day, and although I was not eager to climb upon my new flower bike again, I certainly did not want to “take a ride” with my family if it meant that we would end up, as we often did, at the house of some aging relative, who had no entertainment for children, and whose house smelled like moth balls and mouthwash. My sister and I protested, but to no avail. We rode for what seemed like an hour. The scenery was actually pretty and the ride was tolerable. I had a vague recollection that this was the same route we took when going on our yearly fall ventures to pick apples and buy pumpkins. We eventually rolled into the small town of Schuylerville, NY. It was an odd destination. We had no relatives here, and it certainly was not apple picking season. The station wagon stopped in front of a small brick building with a large window in the front. On the sidewalk, in front of the building, were several bicycles. Brand new bicycles. Shining and new. The large wooden sign over the doorway read “Dick’s Schwinn Shop”. For one of the few times in my young life I was struck speechless. Thought-less might be a better description. I could not make sense of the things that were happening. We were at a bicycle shop. In Schuylerville, NY. My whole family was there. It was not my birthday. It was no one’s birthday in my family. But here we were. At the bicycle shop. And look at those bicycles! Shining in the sun with the warm breeze blowing the tassels that hung from the handle bars. I sat in my seat, looking at them in amazement, until my father finally asked: “Well, do you want one or not?”
It was a Schwinn Sting Ray. Red with silver flecks mixed into the paint job. The banana seat even had flecks of silver mixed in to the plastic! And to think that we were still in New York! It was a 5 speed. It had 5 different speeds! And hand brakes! This was before the invention of mountain bikes, but the Stingray lead the way to that movement. The back tire was designed for riding on dirt, and the front tire was made for street rides. An original hybrid! It was the only bike I was interested in – the only one I wanted – the only one that I took for a “test drive” up and down the sidewalk in front of Dick’s Schwinn Shop. I was ecstatic. In a dream. On the top of the world. It was my first new bicycle.
I don’t remember the reaction of the other kids on my street when I rolled up on “The Stinger”. It really didn’t matter. What other people say and do says more about them than it does about us. But I do remember that bike. It was the best, coolest, most awesome bike ever made and I had millions of adventures on it. And I also remember how I got it. The love, and compassion, and sacrifice that my parents made so that I could have it – and it wasn’t even my birthday…
I was reminded of “The Stinger” this week as we were cleaning out our garage and I was adjusting the seats on my children’s bicycles. My youngest daughter now has my older daughter’s bike from last year. My older daughter has a “new” bike that was handed down from a cousin. We don’t live on a dead end street, so most of their riding is done in the drive way or as a family. My younger daughter worked with my wife on “customizing” her new bike with a can of spray paint. We put my younger daughter’s old bike out on the curb with a “free” sign on it, and it was gone within 30 minutes. Times are tough. People are in need.
I had spoken with my wife about getting the kids new bicycles. Neither has had a new bike yet. But neither of them really wants one. They simply don’t care. They are good kids, who don’t ask for much, and they are happy and satisfied with our simple, humble life together as a family. I love them dearly, and I never want them to be hurt by the words or actions of others. They know they are loved, and they know that what others say and do is not really about them, but still, but still…
My apologies for this long ramble. I’m not really sure of the direction it took. Maybe you will know and decide for yourself. If so, I would love to hear your thoughts. Until then, I hope that you all will get out your bikes and ride – with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair.
I totally remember every bit of that. Mostly I remember the look on your face when you saw that bike. Also Dad so related to being made fun of as a kid. I don’t know too many parents who have children who write such loving thank you letters. I wonder if you know how much joy we got out of your joy and how proud we were that Mary defended you. I am very blessed.
Glenn needs a punch in the snot locker!! He’s probably still a jerk! I can’t stand that you went through this, or that any kid or person has to go through the heart punch that happens when joy is pummeled and one realizes the world is full of people whose parents did a horrible job raising them. Glad your sister was there to point that out!
Love your writing, Brian. Don’t know how you’ve retained all these childhood memories! I used to visit Mrs. Waters and read to her, and she was kind and loved the company. She used to bring out a tray of cookies when I came in with my book to read to her. As for Glenn, if it’s the same Glenn I remember, I think he has changed as well, and hopefully for the better. He was on the medi-vac plane that flew Tim to AMCH after his accident. I saw him at the hospital when Tim was in ICU, and he told me about having been there, on the flight to the hospital with Tim. He showed a bit of a soft side that I hadn’t seen when we were younger.
I try to instill in my children the importance of always showing compassion and kindness. And a reminder that once spoken, words cannot be retracted. The bad words leave scars that may not heal. Better to leave people with a smile in their heart, and always say what is nice and good. Unlike our former neighborhood bully!