Riding Bicycles with the Neighbor

I was at the neighbors’ house playing. There was a five-acre field between our homes. The neighbors had six daughters. Well, at that point in time, they had five daughters. I was used to a quiet house with a slower pace. When I walked through the entry of their home, I was met with a number of coats, hats, boots, scarves, and gloves, bags stuffed with stuff all strewn around, piled on and falling off of a bench. You could tell that people came and went in rushes. To the left were split stairs going up to the main living space and down to the basement family room. Already, there was a decision to make. When I was there, I was generally half confused, trying to take it all in.

         (Me becoming a country girl. The tree from my house is behind me as I sit on the neighbors' fence. 1975)

This day, we were outside. Their home was set far back from the main road and had a long, paved driveway with a circular turnabout in front of the house. We were riding our bikes fast down the driveway and whipping round the turnabout. My bike had a hard plastic molded seat and pedals of the same hard plastic. It also had training wheels which rattled as I road it. This bike had been fine on city sidewalks. Now, I lived with a dirt and gravel road in front of my house, no sidewalks. Others had ridden their bikes off to the side of the gravel road and worn trails. These trails were more solid, but they also had a lot of rocks sticking through. When I road my bike on the trail, I hit these rocks and bounced up and down on that hard plastic seat. Or, my wheels glanced off of rocks and jostled me side to side. I frequently had to stop and get myself going again.

Riding bikes at the neighbors was much more fun. This day, one of the older daughters, Mary, asked me, “Don’t you want to get those training wheels off?” “Uh, I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Here, you can use one of our bikes. I’ll teach you!” she said. I was terrified! But I didn’t want her to know. My shame at being afraid was stronger than my fear of getting hurt. I didn’t say that I didn’t want to do it. I found myself on a bike with a cushioned, banana-style seat. The handle bars curved back towards me and the pedals were rubber. It was so comfortable, I was happy just sitting on it. Mary had me at the end of the driveway and explained that she would hold the back of the bike as I pedaled. We got going, as the bike wobbled, I could feel her hand on the back edge of the seat helping to steady it. “Keep pedaling and don’t stop,” she urged me. I kept pedaling and it smoothed and straightened. “Keep pedaling,” she yelled. I kept pedaling and the smoothness felt good. Then I realized she was hollering at me from a distance behind. She was no longer holding onto the seat and running with me. I don’t remember stopping. I don’t remember crashing. I must have done ok.

I tended to play with one of the other daughters, Angie, who was closer in age to me, just a year younger. I became proficient at riding and had my own purplish, wine-colored bike with a banana seat. We rode our bikes downtown in that small country town. It was only two or three miles. We rode to the library to return books and to pick out new ones. Then Angie wanted to go to the store and buy some candy. “I don’t have any money,” I said. I knew I was dampening the fun. “Just go ask your dad for some!” she exclaimed. She was matter-of-fact, casual about it. That is what other kids did, they asked their parents for money. I never had done so. I wondered if he would get mad at me. I had a sense that I shouldn’t ask for money. She waited for me as I rode over to my dad’s store. Since we were living in what was supposed to have been his shop, he had rented a store space on a side street off of Main Street. My parents had painted the outside in wide red and white stripes and named it Reed’s Appliance and Repair. 

When I rode up on my bike, my dad was standing by one of the front bay windows talking to a man. Dad was relaxed, shirt sleeves rolled back, occasionally smiling as they talked. I waited patiently. He turned to me and asked, “What are you up to?” I explained I was with my friend and “Could you give me some money to buy some candy?” I asked. He hesitated. I knew I was putting him on the spot by asking in front of the man. It felt wrong. Dad looked serious. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter which he handed to me. This was a grave transaction. I knew I shouldn’t ask again in the future. I joined Angie and we bought our candy. She enjoyed hers without a care. I enjoyed mine, but knew this would not become a habit.

                       (You can see the corner of the TV here in the lower left of the photo. Close living space.)

We lived in the small space that had been meant to be my dad’s repair shop. I would come home from school and sit on the floor to watch TV.  At one point, the TV stopped working. It was the old kind which had a fuse. I think the fuse went out. Whatever the cause, my parents couldn’t afford to fix it right then. We went at least a month, maybe two, without a working TV. Even when it was working, it received its signal from an antenna on top. I could barely get three channels clear enough to watch. A year or so down the road, my teacher at the time wanted us to watch a certain TV show and do a class assignment. I went down to my friend’s house to watch the show because I couldn’t get it. She also could watch the Muppets and I could not. Even though the Muppets show was popular at the time and it aired for several years, I only saw it a couple of times total. I told myself it didn’t matter.

One day after school as I sat and watched TV, I heard a loud pounding on the wall to my left on the other side of our entry door. Then a cracking sound and part of the wall board pushed through as a jagged arch. “What is happening?!” I thought as my heart stopped for a moment. The pounding continued as well as ripping and tearing. When enough of the wall was removed, my parents’ friend, Jim Riggin, looked through with a smile and said, “Hi, Cretia! How are ya doin’?” Jim had managed the construction of the original shop section and he now was managing the construction of an addition to the home. He was friendly and nice, so I figured him tearing our wall to pieces was ok. I went back to watching TV.