Corsicana Daily Sun, Corsicana, Texas

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February 3, 2012

Fleischer: Bicycle Boogie

By Mark Fleischer Corsicana Daily Sun

Corsicana — How many of my dear readers remember those golden days of yesteryear? The fads and trends came at you like so many gnats in the air. As many of you know by now I grew up in “The Fabulous Fifties” and “The Turbulent Sixties.’’ Coon skin caps were the rage along with hula hoops, Mickey Mouse, Slinkys, Super Balls, black and white horror classics, crew cuts, rockabilly, ducktails, butch wax, childhood innocence, and a whole array of teen idols. There was one big fad that almost did me in. We used to take old unwanted baseball cards and attach them to our bicycle so they would hit the spokes as we did our “Easy Rider’’ thing. The result was a sound making our bicycles appear as if we had a bike, hog, or monster motorcycle. It was cool, man. Little did we know some of those afore mentioned baseball cards might have been worth a lot of money years later. None of us realized this practice loosened our bicycle spokes and could cause problems later.

Another cool thing one must have was a little ditty called “butterfly or hog handlebars’’ on your bicycle. They were extremely popular among us paper route businessmen. You see, these handlebars were shaped sort of like a huge letter “U.” As you steered your bike, your hands were high in the air as though being robed. We were just like the biker outlaws on their Harleys. Another reason these handlebars were so big with the paper route guys was because it made a good place to put our paper carrier bags. We simply hung them from the high handlebars making it a cool and easy way to deliver our papers.

After I had delivered the Dallas Morning News for awhile, with my pride and joy “Hog Handlebars,’’ a small problem arose. Once I had ridden awhile the Hog Bars would become loose. I simply fixed the small annoyance by carrying a wrench in my shirt pocket. If my precious bars became loose I simply stopped and tighten them and I was good for several miles. One morning I was tooling along on my bicycle and listening to rock and roll on this new “cool thing’’ called a transistor radio. I felt like I was on top of the world, man. It was Saturday and there was no school. All of a sudden I felt my “bars’’ becoming somewhat loose. “No problem.’’ I thought, as I stopped to fix the minor nuisance with my trusty wrench. There was no wrench in my pocket. I guess it must have fallen out of my pocket. Since I only had a little bit to go to finish my route I decided to chance it. Wrong decision, as I gamely pressed on to finish my route the inevitable happened. As I approached the porch to throw a customer’s paper, the handlebars gave way and I tumbled head over heels into their bushes. It was a “good news, bad news,’’ sort of thing. The good news was the bushes broke my fall. The bad news was they were rose bushes and those thorns hurt, plus my bike was busted.

The first thing I thought was, “I should have listened to my old man…” He had warned me to employ this do-dad called a lock washer. Did I listen? No. After I arose and gingerly walked the rest of my route I sheepishly approached dear ole dad. Mom was concerned I was really hurt. Dad checked to make sure I didn’t have any broken bones and assured her, “he’ll live, Grace.” After he took me to retrieve my bike we went to the neighborhood hardware store. I received the standard lecture the rest of the day. My Dad had told me, “If I tell you pigs can fly, maybe you’ll listen next time, son.’’ I had to admit Dad was right again. The lock washer worked well. I never had to worry about it after that. In our family the saying goes “the old man is right 99.9 percent of the time.” The only problem was I had to listen to my Dad exclaiming for months after that, “The ole man was right again.’’ Funny how that percentage has gone down thru the years but still at 89, the old man is still right at least 90 percent of the time. I have made it this far as I just celebrated 63 years — maybe I will make it longer if I keep listening to him.

So here is a little advice to all my dear reader’s sons and daughters out there…“Listen to your ole man.’’

—————

Mark Fleischer is a Daily Sun columnist. His column appears on Sundays. Want to “Soundoff” on this column? Email: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com

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