Our Victorian house on Jefferson Street © Google Maps 2009. The covered porch on the left and the concrete steps have been added. That may be the very tree that I ran into with my bike in 1951.
During World War II, with the effort to use all metal and rubber available for arms production, bicycles just weren't available for kids. We did get a wagon, a Radio Flyer, that I recall we kept a very long time because we kept it in out of the rain and snow unlike other kids who left their wagons out in the rain and they rusted out. And we didn't scavenge the wheels and axles to make a soapbox derby car like so many others did either.
It wasn't until we were 6 when the neighbor across the highway took us to the other side of Owen where a kid had a medium-sized girl's bike that we got to try. There were no training wheels. A few tries down a slight hill on the deserted gravel road in front of that house and both Roger and I had figured out how to ride a bicycle--easy. But we didn't get one then.
That would have to wait until we were in Wausau and 9 years old. I guess by that time, we had begged our parents enough so that Mom came up with a solution. She told us that she took our "birth money" from our savings accounts and we went down to a bicycle shop and picked out two bikes. They were off brand and used, but were in good shape. I recall that mine was midsize, maroon, I believe, in color, and quite sturdy. All we had to worry about was getting our right pant leg caught in the chain. Like most everything at that time, our bikes were right-legged. So were we, so it was no problem with the chain guard mounted on the right side along with the sprocket.
We didn't ride far at first, stayed pretty close to the house and on the sidewalk on our block. In fact, when coming from the alley along the walkway past our house to the front, I made the mistake of trying to go around the front of the house between the big tree and the house and I couldn't make the turn, slamming directly into the tree and breaking the front fork that held the front wheel. Fortunately, it was an easy fix and I continued to ride after that without damage to my bike, not even loose spokes that happened to so many others. Like our wagon, we kept our bikes in the garage when we weren't using them and that kept them in good condition. Clean and well oiled. Tires fully inflated.
One of the fads that we engaged in was attaching playing cards with clothes pins to the struts of our fenders in a way that they would snap on each spoke as we rode, making a roaring sound that approximated power, like a motorcycle. Fortunately, that fad was short-lived, because it actually made it harder to pedal the more cards were attached, and the practice had a tendency to loosen up spokes.
Of course, we tried all of the tricks we could think of while riding, like standing on the seat, lying on our bellies on the seat and riding with two or three on the bike with us when there was no place to sit except the handlebars, or side saddle on the crossbar, something that I enjoyed having girls do. But if you stood up to ride rather than sit down, someone could ride behind you on the seat. Or even ride precariously on the rear fender with their feet gripping the nuts on the end of the rear hubs. Some of this was a recipe for disaster, but I don't recall anyone ever getting hurt.
Bored with just riding, I started to ride everywhere with my hands off the handlebars, steering the bike with my torso and arms from side to side. Leaning just enough to get the weight of the handlebars to turn the bike either right or left. We didn't cut corners like other kids and stayed on the sidewalk. Didn't cut across lawns. We were proud of our lawn and didn't ride on it. Something we probably learned from our Dad.
I devised a complicated path for riding with my hands off the handlebars that started at the alley behind our house, followed the walkway to the front of the house and around the easy side of that big tree to the sidewalk on Jefferson Street. Halfway down to the corner, at a driveway, watching over my right shoulder to see if there were any cars coming, and then, entering Jefferson on a driveway crossing to the other side and to the stop sign at 7th Street.
There, I would stop briefly looking both ways, and then cross 7th and continue down about half a block before making a U-turn, coming back to the stop sign on 7th again. This time, signaling with my left hand my intention to turn right while I stopped, looked both ways, and then turned right, always looking out for cars. Halfway down the block I signaled with my left arm my intention to turn left into our alley and down the rocky, gravelly, and mud-puddly way to the back of the house to where I had begun.
But I didn't stop. Instead, I continued to ride the circuit without ever having to put my hands on the handlebars or my feet down for hours until I decided to quit. None of the other kids could do it. Roger couldn't.
One of the times we ventured further was to take on Jefferson Street hill. About one long block east of our house the main rail line for the Hiawatha came through between Milwaukee and Superior. Beyond that was East Hill that towered above the city and was where all the rich people lived on Franklin Street with huge fenced in mansions. But Jefferson Street was populated pretty much with houses like ours.
I don't know if we rode up or pushed our bikes up the hill, but we went nearly all the way to the top before coming down. I recall leading and starting to go very fast, hanging on for dear life, coasting, and maybe even hitting the brakes a little bit to slow down. When we got to the flat and the tracks, I made it over them all right, but I heard a crash behind me and it was Roger who took a pretty bad tumble when he hit those rough tracks. I don't recall ever riding down Jefferson Street hill again.
Our grandparents came to town and managed an old dive on 3rd Street called the Delmonico Hotel (no resemblance to the one in NYC). We always came to the hotel from the back, because that's where there was parking and the entrance that we took walking up to their upstairs rear apartment. Anyway, one day we rode our bikes over there. The alleyway leading to the back of the hotel was very narrow, one truck width wide with two brick buildings right up to the sidewalk on either side.
Roger was ahead of me and we were on the sidewalk, about to turn into the alley when a car burst out onto the sidewalk just as Roger was turning in without even a beep on the horn. Roger's front bike fender scratched the guy's new car a small scratch. Of course, we were stupid kids and the guy demanded that we pay him for the damage. I don't remember what happened, but I don't think we paid him. He could have killed someone walking on the sidewalk by the way that he drove right out onto it without carefully coming to a stop or at least honking to let people know.
A few times, we rode our bikes all the way to the swimming pool where we learned to swim at 7 years old. That involved taking Scott Street three blocks to Main Street (3rd) and then three blocks down to the Wisconsin River and the bridge to reach the other side. Traffic made the road bridge across the river a bit dangerous, so we found an easier, safer way to go.
Just south of the road bridge was a railway trestle. There were hardwood walkways about a foot wide on either side of the tracks. Outside that, was a black steel outside wall, close the walkway, that probably provided structural integrity for the bridge and made it nearly impossible for anyone to fall off or jump off the top of the barrier, about 6 feet high, but very difficult to reach from the walkway.
The trestle was probably about 200 yards long to the other side. We rode easily on the boardwalk the whole way without having to walk our bikes. We always checked carefully before riding across to make sure there were no trains coming.
On this particular day we were with our friends who lived near the chestnut tree. The older guy in front, with Roger behind him. I was behind Roger and the younger guy behind me. We checked the bridge for train sounds and heard nothing, so we started across. It was slower because there were four of us single file. About halfway, we heard the loud blare of a diesel horn and saw a train coming around the bend toward us. A deep fright ran through all of our spines at that sight!
The older guy took off and made it across the bridge just before the train reached him. The rest of us leaned back into the steel wall as far as we could and waited for the train to come and sweep us all off, crumpling us up in the process.
As the engine approached, an engineer stuck his head out the window and waved for us to get back. And then, the massive engine and a lot of cars came rumbling by, inches from our bike pedals and handlebars. It was shades of the scene in Stand by Me, but we lived to tell about it. Never told our parents or anyone. Didn't want to lose our privileges to ride the bikes and go to the swimming pool on our own.
On the steep road down to the floodplain where the swimming pool was, we often viewed places where kids rode their bicycles down off the side or slid down in winter, leaving an extremely steep dirt path. I think I tried one or two of those and it was a scary ride to the bottom. Our attempt at extreme dirt bike riding that kids do with ease these days. We tried not to do anything that would hurt us or our bikes. They were too precious.
Continued in Chapter 8…
Copyright 2019 © Ronald W. Hull
7/18/19
