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Brooks Peterson
Monday, February 19, 2001
Pedaling to a different drummer
We were talking about bicycles, weren't we? Well, we are now. OK with you?
Truth to tell, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about bicycles. There is only so much room in one's life for transportation-related manias, and mine generally focus on machines with a wheel at each corner that make intoxicating noises and go like stink.
This is not to say I'm not aware of bicycles - and bicyclists. Certainly not. I encounter them every now and again out on the public thoroughfares and make every effort to give them a wide berth in order to preclude any painfully close encounters.
At any rate . . . There I was, backing out of the driveway of the Peterson compound, when my daughter said, "Hey, Dad: Check out the guy on the bicycle."
I spared him a glance, but didn't give the fellow much thought. He was, I dimly perceived, a gent of mature years - might even have a year or two on me, if you can believe that - but in our neighborhood there's nothing unusual about that. We have all sorts of people out pedaling and power-walking around the borough. Chacun a son gout, says me.
A block or two later, however, we somehow crossed paths again, and my co-pilot again called my attention to the same cyclist (dang - this guy really gets around), and this time, it registered.
The bicyclist himself, as I've already noted, was not a particularly novel sight, but . . . the bike!
I had not seen such a machine in . . . well, in decades. This was not one of those spindly 27-speed two-wheelers with low-slung handlebars that impose a, shall we say, high-tailed configuration on the rider that looks excruciatingly painful (I've been told on good authority that quite the opposite is the case, but still . . .). Neither was it a knobby-tired mountain bike. Come to think of it, why would you want a mountain bike in Corpus Christi?
Nossir: This was a beauty straight from the days of my youth. It was a gleaming, fat-tired apparition painted (I think) stygian black with scarlet accents . . . oh, and plenty of chrome. And with the imitation tank, to give it that ineffably cool Baby Harley Look. Were there streamers hanging down from the handlebar grips? Not sure. If there weren't, there should have been.
More: It had a big, user-friendly seat configured to pamper a derriere rather than punish it. And - mirabile dictu! - no gears. Not so much as the suggestion of a gear change. One Speed For All, and All For One Speed.
You think time travel doesn't happen? Guess again. Suddenly, I was a kid of 6 - or was it 7? - confronting on some monumental occasion (my birthday, I expect) the most mind-bendingly bodacious set of (two) wheels any over-indulged kid could ever hope to encounter.
It was, I kid you not, the Official Hopalong Cassidy Bike done up just as Hoppy himself no doubt dictated: lots of black enamel paint, white trim, streamers, and the piece de resistance: twin holsters on either side of the tank accommodating Official Hoppy six-shooters.
Now, the revolvers went the way of all cap guns within a few weeks, but that magnificent bike saw me through all manner of passages - including the blissful day when, to my astonishment, I found myself bicycling, without benefit of training wheels.
To my mom went the credit: She pushed me endless miles around our little cul-de-sac (my dad, with his back problems, was just not cut out for such work), and was probably even more thrilled than I was.
There have been other bicyles in my life - notably a snappy Columbia one-speeder with chrome fenders - but for me, that Hopalong Cassidy Special was and ever will be The Bike.
To my bicyclist neighbor, my thanks for bringing that memory of speed, liberation, glamor and cap guns back to life.
Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com
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