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| Me, around 12 years old on my paper boy bike (the only picture I have of me on that sturdy bike) 1954 |
My first bicycle ride was when I was about ten years old. My Mom got me a paperboy job and I needed a bike to deliver those newspapers.
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| I have very few pictures of my first bike unfortunately - this one taken by my brother Christmas Day 1954 |
I never had trouble riding a bike when I was that age. I was a paperboy for five years, quitting when I was fifteen years old because I thought I was too old to ride a bike. That notion seems quaint now doesn't it but back in the Fifties, only kids rode bikes. Adults didn't ride bikes. Oh sure, I saw those newsreels of adult Europeans and Asians riding bikes but hey, they were too poor to own cars.
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| My trusty paperboy bike 1954 |
From fifteen years old to my forties I didn't ride a bike. I had no need to.
Then came a time when I lived in center city Philadelphia and bike riding by adults because socially acceptable. I bought a bike. Most weekends weather permitting I would ride my bike from our townhouse in center city Philly to the Art Museum and do the Kelly Drive Loop. I thought nothing of the traffic I had to ride through to get to the Art Museum. And oh how I enjoyed riding my bike on Kelly Drive around the Schuylkill River. Great exercise and the feeling of freedom one gets riding one's bike.
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| Me riding from Art Museum Philadelphia, PA 1976 |
Four four years (1976 to 1980) I regularly rode my bike in center city Philadelphia. When I vacationed every summer in Provincetown, Mass.
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| Me in Provincetown, Mass taking a break from riding the National Seashore Bike Trail - 1980 |
I always rented a bike for my whole stay. However, when we moved out of Philadelphia to East Brandywine Township on our 7.875 parcel of hillside wooded land, I no longer had the need of a bicycle. I sold my bicycle to my boss.
Then we moved to Delaware. Nice, flat Delaware. About three years ago I saw an ad on the NextDoor app on my iPhone for a bicycle for sale. I responded to the ad to discover my neighbor right around the corner was selling his bike. I went down to take a look and a test drive and bought it for one hundred dollars.
After almost forty years I resumed riding a bike. Only now I was doing it with a much older body, an arthritic body.
It wasn't too long until I fell off of my bike, seriously bruising the one on my lower left leg. Thank God I didn't break my leg.
I was now unsteady on my bike. No longer was I the limber teenager or thirty-seven year old man hopping on my bike and hopping off with ease. Now I had to gingerly swing my leg over the bicycle seat to astride my bike. Once on my bike I'l all right but if a vehicle goes by too closely to me I'm afraid I'll lose my balance. I no longer have the confidence I had when I was much younger. The reason for that is that my arthritis (lower back, neck, hands) prevents me.
But you know what folks, I'm still riding.