Memories of motorcycles, bicycles and talking to kids

  ​       I was at the BGM Kiddie Carnival earlier this month to take some photos. I was milling about the large gathering of area youngsters and their parents when I noticed a young boy with a green tractor on his shirt.
       “Do you like John Deere tractors,” I asked.
       “No,” the young lad replied.
       “Red tractors,” I asked.
       “No,” he said again.
       “How about blue tractors,” I asked a third time.
       “No,” he said.
      Puzzled, I waited while his mom whispered something to him before I asked what his favorite tractor was for a fourth time.
      “Orange,” he replied.
      “Alias Chalmers,” I said. 
      “Yes,” he said.
      “Do you have an Alias Chalmers tractor,” I asked.
       “No, but my dad does,” the little fellow said as I smiled.
       I didn’t have a tractor as a young fellow growing up in the big city, but in junior high, I wanted a motorcycle. Atlas Cycle in Tulsa was a few blocks from my school and home.
       My friends Brain C. and David B. had motorcycles and I wanted one, too. They had newspaper routes and delivered papers on their motorcycles.
     Atlas Cycle had a Bridgestone 60cc motorcycle and I loved that bike, especially the dirt bike model for $250.
      That’s not much money these days, but to an eighth grader making $100 a month on a paper route in 1974, it was a lot money. 
      I stopped at Atlas after school on occasion and would sit on the motorcycle and pretend I was riding the trails. I tried to convince my folks to let me buy it, but it was a no go. I even promised to leave it at my grandparents and only ride it there.
      My folks knew how much I wanted it, but their concerns regarding me getting hurt outweighed the cost of having the motorcycle.
      Looking back, it was all good.
      I may not have had a motorcycle, but I did have a number of bicycles through the years. I took piano lessons starting in second grade and by the fifth grade, I was taking weekly lessons at Mrs. Murry’s Piano School in west Tulsa. 
     There was a resale store on West Edison just outside of downtown Tulsa a few miles from where I took my piano lessons. My mom stopped one day while I was taking my piano lesson and bought me a bicycle.
     I don’t remember the brand, but it was an ugly bicycle. I added a banana seat and sissy handlebars and it was still ugly. I rode that bicycle for a couple years before trading it in for a refurbished Schwinn Stringray bicycle.
       Mr. James was a local bicycle repair man who worked out of his garage a few blocks from my boyhood home.
     Stepping into his garage was like visiting a bicycle museum with bicycle parts hanging from large nails on the garage rafters to a variety of bicycles for sale. 
     Mr. James would scour junkyards looking for Schwinn bicycle parts and he’d build bicycles from the ground up.
     I traded in the bicycle my parents bought me and even Mr. James said he’d never seen a bicycle so ugly.
       My first Stingray, a gold color model, cost $35. I added a newspaper basket on front that my aunt Alice bought me. During the spring of my seventh grade year, I didn’t lock my bicycle at school and someone stole it.
       It was a big school and unlocked bicycles were easy prey for a thief.
       I bought a second bicycle from Mr. James, a green colored version, and after the frame broke, I got another one, a yellow version.
    My bicycle had no fenders or a chain guard and I rode it delivering newspapers, going to school and hanging out with my friends.
     I’m thankful for the all the memories and experiences as a youngster. I’m also thankful for the all the opportunities that life has afforded me.
    I love talking to kids and I have taken lots of photos of youngsters and their prize-winning animals at the county fair, in school productions and at community events enjoying life. And I’ve been around long enough that I’m now photographing kids of kids who I photographed years ago.
What a blessing!
      Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day.