Saturday, December 12, 2009
7:50 AM
Bikes
I got a blue bike very, very similar to this one for Christmas of my 3rd grade year. It wasn't at all the style of bike I had envisioned when I asked my parents to get me one but I ended up loving it a great deal. I was so proud of that bike and I kept the streets of our neighborhood hot riding it everyday.
One of my favorite Christmas memories centers around that bike. We opened all of our presents on Christmas Eve, like always, and I got TONS of really great stuff. TONS. But when I got to the end of the present opening, I slowly realized that there had been no bike in the mix of gifts that I received. I was disappointed but I got so many other things that I just shrugged it off, hoping that maybe my parents would get one for me for my birthday the following month.
Now, normally, our tradition was that we would open presents on Christmas Eve, then go to my dad's mom's house for a family gathering. Then, the next morning, we would all go to my mom's parent's house for a gathering with members of her side of the family. However, this particular year, my aunt, uncle, and cousins who lived in Wagoner, were spending Christmas week with us at our house so we did things a little differently. My aunt, uncle, and cousins opened gifts with us at our house on Christmas Eve, and then we all went out to my grandparent's (my mom's parents) house to open more gifts with them. We stayed out there for a few hours, opened more gifts, watched my aunt almost burn the house down by shoving way too many boxes and too much wrapping paper into the fireplace, and then loaded up into multiple cars and headed back to our house for the night. After a full day and night of busy activity and family fun, I was excited, but pooped and not even thinking about the bike I hadn't gotten.
As we pulled into the driveway of our house, Bernie alerted me to the fact that the headlights were reflecting off of something very shiny in the picture window. For safety reasons, we had turned the tree lights off before we left for my grandparent's house so I knew that wasn't the source of the bright reflection but that which was going down still didn't click in my brain. I was totally oblivious. lol My parents hushed Bernie, all the while grinning in that "We've got a secret" sort of way. I don't know why but I STILL didn't suspect a thing. I just thought the adults and big kids were sharing some grown-up joke that I wasn't supposed to understand. Surely by now you know where this is going. I walked into the house, and there, setting beside of the Christmas tree, was a beautiful, brand new blue bicycle with my name on it! I was SO surprised and so excited that I could barely stand it. I wanted to ride it immediately but had to wait until the next morning, so that there would be daylight. lol My friend, Jeff, got a new bike that year, too so he and I rode together all of Christmas Day. That was one of funnest Christmases of my entire life and that's saying a lot because all of my Christmases thus far have been special.
My cousin, Rhonda had a bike this color, with white banana seat but her's didn't have gears or hand brakes. I loved riding that bike when we visited Wagoner.
This is the color of Bernie's cool bike. As I wrote in a previous post, I LOVED that bike and wished like crazy I was old enough and big enough to ride it! His didn't look exactly like this one. His was fancier but this one looks enough like it that it reminds me of it. It's the same color and same general style.
Bernie, not to be confused with Bennie, hot dogging on my brand new BMX bike, lol
Benny
BMX bikes became wildly popular when I was in high school and they were super sleek, cool bicycles. I've looked all over google in attempt to find a pic of one that looks more like the one I had but I can't find one anywhere. Mine was much nicer than the one in this picture. It was a flourescent green with black and silver trim. The handgrips, seat, and crotch protector were blackl There was also a black, thick pad covering the front handlebar. It had the knobby all-terrain tires, racer-style seat, and back hand brakes. My cousin, Benny had one just like it and we rode them all over the place. They were super sharp-looking bicycles. Having had two 10-speeds stolen during my freshman year of high school, I kept my BMX inside. I also kept it in pristine condition so it looked showroom new at all times.
I miss the bike and I miss those fun times I had with my cousin, Benny. Neither of us knew the other existed until I was in the 8th grade and he was in the 6th but we made up for lost time once we did find one another. We were very close and we did a lot of fun, crazy things together. He was like a little brother to me and I loved him a great deal.
College took the two of us in different directions and I haven't seen him in more than 20 years but I still think about him often and laugh at all of the nutty things we did as apartment rats at Ch******* Palace to keep things electrified. LOL