A Boy and His Bike

I have noted previously that my dad did not give rides to his children. He drove the car to work and back home (a round trip of about two miles) and that was it. And my mother did not drive at all.This turned out to be a good deal for me as a boy, because it forced me to walk or ride my bike whenever I wanted to go somewhere beyond the confines of my neighborhood. Walking was fine, but riding my bike on a supple summer day was glorious.

A boy and his bike can become one, like a horse and rider, when the tarmac slips by beneath your feet and the cottonwood fuzz blows around your face like a tenuous cloth fog. The miles became meaningless as I wheeled along West River Road, a parkway that runs along the Mississippi River up to Fort Snelling and Minnehaha Park.

How to describe that elevating independent feeling of traveling what seemed to me vast distances under my own power? I rode a clunky old Schwinn, no gears, with a butt sprung seat. I veered off the parkway to circle the blocks of elegant brick homes laid out in the midst of acres of lawn -- wondering if the people inside those semi-mansions were any happier than I was at the moment. I decided they couldn’t be; for my bliss came from within and was dependent on nothing external -- except maybe the dicey bike chain, which had a tendency to slip off when struggling up steep inclines.Fitting it back on took but a minute; the trick is to turn the bike pedal backwards as you slip the chain around the wheel gear.

The river sent me a variety of perfumes. Wet elm bark; peppery weeds; the sweetness of swift flowing water; and the sour stench that came after a heavy rain. Gravel and coal barges moved in stately queues up and down the water, like dowagers at a royal function. Crows and blue jays squabbled over bits of trash left by hikers along the river bank. The road dipped up and down, with me upon it rejoicing in freewheeling descents and steady uphill climbs.

There were metal water fountains on the bricked sidewalks, painted a heavy Park Board green. Nobody carried water with them except for Boy Scouts on a hike with their flattened canteens, so when I was thirsty I skidded over to a drinking fountain for a long sip. The water, I remember, tasted of virtuous metallic salts -- it was almost like taking a vitamin pill. But on a really hot and humid day there was only one place to get a superb drink -- the A&W kiosk just before Minnehaha Park. Their dark brown root beer, served in a frosted mug, was mead to this little wayfarer on a bike. I always wanted to get a rootbeer float, which cost 75 cents, but my purse never contained more than a quarter -- just enough for one tall mug. And sometimes I didn’t even have that, especially if I had been dilatory about mowing the lawn.

I’d go take a look at the Falls -- yep, still there by golly -- and then head back home, usually as the sun began to stretch soft black shadows across the parkway. Head back to the bickering of my sisters, the dreadful possibility of tuna fish casserole for dinner, and my mom’s insistent nagging about “Why didn’t you mow the lawn today -- where’d you go hide yourself?” But it was okay, everything was hunky dory, because I could always hop on my Schwinn the next day and the next and go back up that enchanted path again and again, forever and ever. Amen.