I wish I had a picture here to show you. Perhaps I will get the few…or maybe just two that I can think of that may actually still exist and find a way to digitize them for sharing. They are pictures of my bicycle. I’m on said bike in one of those photos. I know that photo survived.
When I was a kid, I had a purple bicycle. My parents bought me this bike. They bought it at an old Sears catalog store in a town close by to the one we lived in.
From birth up until I was eleven years and a few months old, I lived in a town called Brownstown, Indiana. The place is nothing special which is good. Had it found a way to be some kind of special tourist trap, I probably would not have been allowed to ride my bike all over town. But ride I did…every chance I got.
We lived on the far east end of town on a street called Jackson Street. It was just a few blocks down the hill from the courthouse, as Brownstown is the county seat of Jackson County. When I was riding my bike, the town had all of one stoplight in it. Nowadays it has two.
Even after I moved to some out-post called Ramsey in Harrison County, now and again I was startled by what I thought was the sound of the bell atop the courthouse clock bonging to indicate the hour of the night it was on. I suppose I was dreaming. Last Sunday I was at a picnic just barely down the street from my old homestead and indeed the clock bell’s sound was pleasant and welcome. That sound has not changed in over forty years.
The courthouse lawn has a tank on it from the Korean War. My buddies and I played on it. Oh the things such a stout piece of metal can do for one’s imagination is astounding.
As I said, I rode my bike and I rode it everywhere in town.
My bike started with a banana seat. I think I was 6 when I got it. I rode it until I was 11. One day…years after I put what we called a “ten speed style seat” on it…I was peddling away and the handle bars just up and cracked and broke off. I was heartbroken. I suppose it was good timing. We moved a couple months later and I did not have take it with me. I started riding my Dad’s old bike. It was a blue 5-speed.
I rode my old bike to the Brownstown pool. We had a pool in town. It too is still there. It is situated on Bridge Street about a mile from our old house. Also on Bridge Street is the park. I played little league baseball there. I rode my bike to baseball practice. It was a great feeling to slide one’s baseball glove over a handle bar until it hits bottom and just kind of dangles there as you peddle your heart out heading to a diamond. In 1979 I was on an unbeaten team…The Royals. It was back when we still played ball in blue jeans and t-shirts and the only players that got trophies were the members of the teams that won the season’s championship. There were no handing out of trophies just because someone was afraid a kid might get his precious feelings hurt.
That last sentence is why soccer in the United States will never be a major professional sport. I cherish my 1979 trophy. I earned it. Our boys, Jarrett and Cody, played soccer and were patted on the head at the end of the season and handed a trophy annually and neither one of these boys could tell you where a one of those trophies are. They didn’t earn them and they both understand the value of hard work….thankfully.
I digress. But I did speak the rights while doing it.
Just down Bridge Street…another block downhill from the park…lived my great-grandmother, Ivy Nowling. I rode my bike to her house. I was ten and she was seventy-six and every day at 1 PM during the summer I knew I could count on watching “Days of Our Lives” with her. She enjoyed it and kept me updated if I missed out on a day or two or three in succession. She had a habit of pronouncing the names of the characters her own little way. The bad guy was named “Stefano”. Grandma called him “Stefana”.
I have strong memories and I have strong legs. Thanks in great part to a purple bicycle I miss right now…as I speak the rights.
I’ll find a picture.
Danny Johnson