Good Sports

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on January 3, 2007

The Freedom to Venture Away From Home

“Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.”

“Nah, never was.” - Buddman

It was, at that time, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I had coveted it for over a year and now it was mine. No longer would I have to endure the teasing of friends about my sister’s hand me down “girl’s” single gear coaster brake bike. This new white Schwinn Racer had several gears, hand brakes and I could pedal backwards without stopping. Brother Bobby got one too. His was black. I named my new bike “Whitey”. It was more to me than just metal and rubber. It represented freedom.

Whitey would take me out of my neighborhood, to places I’d never been. I would be able to explore places many miles from my home, go to friend’s houses or the park in minutes, and expand my community of friends to kids I’d met in school, but who lived more than a mile from my house. Whitey would soon have a basket that would turn him into a truck and a means to generate income for me when I began my neighborhood delivery service.

Not being tied to my Mother to take me places in the family car, I could ride Whitey to the movies. I no longer needed the bus to get to Wrigley Field. I had the liberty to leave the house and go where Whitey would take me. Though I do not minimize the need for a helmet, I grew up in the days before bicycle helmets. Surprisingly, we had no need for locks for our bikes. In the 1960’s, cars were used to seeing bikes on the streets and so compensated their speed to share the road with the bipeds. It was as easy as go out the door, get on Whitey, and see where the day would take me.

One favorite trip of mine was to Riverview Road. That was not really the name of the road; it was what kids in the neighborhood called it. Riverview Road was simply a series of empty lots where the weeds and grass had grown so tall, that you could not see over them, even while on your bike. Neighborhood kids cut winding pathways through the weeds while on their bicycles making a single track dirt path bordered by tall weeds. The terrain was slightly hilly making the bike ride feel a little like a roller coaster. At least that is how we viewed it. There was no river nearby. We called it Riverview Road after Riverview; Chicago’s most famous amusement park that had several very fast roller coasters. I met my first set of rival gang members at Riverview Road. After one encounter with some older boys from a tougher neighborhood, I only went back to Riverview Road when I had three or more friends with me.

Whitey was my horse. He was with me from the time I was 12, until I left home for college. I lost track of him after that. I never realized his significance when we parted. He probably ended up in the hands of some kid who found him in a Goodwill store. There have been other bikes since Whitey, but none have come close to the gift Whitey had given me.

Times change. We often look backward with rose colored glasses not at what was, but at what we remember those times to be. Could I be romanticizing the freedom Whitey represented? Am I forgetting the days it rained? Has it slipped my mind that it was sometimes so hot and humid that I pleaded with Mom to take me to Marty’s house only to hear, “You have a bike,”? How many times had a car just missed running into me? What about that time I fell off Whitey very nearly hitting my helmetless head on the curb? Today’s bicycles are better, safer and faster than Whitey. Unfortunately, today’s parents have to caution their children about the myriad of dangers awaiting them if their children venture out on their bicycles. Traffic is heavier, faster and less likely to share with pedestrians what drivers of cars consider to be “their road. There are monsters that prey on unsupervised children. Bicycle theft is rampant. Many children don’t want to wear the helmets that may save their lives. For what its worth, a lot of children no longer view the bicycle as a means of transportation for them.

Go to the school’s bike parking lot to see how few bicycles are used to commute our sons and daughters to and from school. Our children either take our half filled busses to school, or depend on their parents to drive them there (that is until they turn 16, then they can drive themselves). Bicycles today are used more as a form of exercise than a means of transportation. It is not uncommon for a person to put a bike in a vehicle, drive to a safe place to ride the bike, exercise while riding the bike, and drive the vehicle back home.

Times change. We often look forward seeing the gray clouds of what we perceive to be an extrapolation of the present spiraling downward trend, not at what could be. Have I failed to mention today’s inspiring young people who ride those little single speed trick bikes that seem too small for them? Many of today’s youth use such bikes as transportation, much in the same way I used Whitey. I am also impressed by those bikers and other youths using those ubiquitous skate boards as a way of traveling from here to there. What of the wonderful bike pathways that have sprung up like the Monon Trail, allowing commuters to cycle to work from Carmel to downtown Indy? I have witnessed bikers in the Minneapolis area who can pedal anywhere in the city using pathways without the fear of being run down by an auto. Newer neighborhoods in our village are now planning bikeways for their residents. Perhaps in the future we will see a major shift away from the overuse of autos to one where autos and bicycles share the road in harmony similar to the way they do in European and Asian cities. There is reason to believe that the future will bring positive changes to how we will use our roads and byways. Hopefully our children’s children may one day nostalgically look back on their youth viewing their first bicycle the way I now see Whitey.

Budd Glassberg is a resident of Zionsville who is active in the local running community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.