This true story is entered on Hazel's "Tell Me a True Story" site. My continued story will follow.
Where Are the Brakes ?? courtesy photobucket.com |
It had to be somewhere around 1939 as best I can recollect, school was out and we boys had been planning for weeks what we were going to do this summer.
It took all of
three days to accomplish all of our big plans and we were at a loss to come up
with something new to do for the rest of the summer.
Of course it was
the beginning of summer and the weather was heating up and by eleven o'clock we
had to find some shade.
A few miles away
was a swimming pool where you could swim for a price but by the time we paid
bus fare and paid for swimming it was more than we could afford so we scratched
that off our list of things to do.
There was one
other issue that caused us not to go to the pool and that was there were so
many people who were in the pool side by side that it ran over and when
everyone got out at closing time it was only a little over half full and they
had to refill it. It was like taking a
bath with half of the town.
Among our gang
was only one who had a bicycle. It didn't
have hand brakes and I found out later the reversing the pedals didn't work the
brakes either.
While he didn't
like to let anyone ride it (actually his folks forbid it) he would relent and
let a couple of us use it. He seemed to
get around on it pretty good and I finally got him to let me use it.
I no sooner started
to pedal it when I back pedaled to put the brakes on and it didn't stop. I wasn't moving very fast so I just slid my
feet on the ground to get it stopped.
I asked my friend,
“Where are the brakes?” and he said, “They don't work!”
“How do you stop
it?” I asked, and with great aplomb he said, “If you put your foot between the
frame and the front wheel it will rub the tire and stop it.”
I looked and saw
that he had removed the front fender and exposed the tire. I climbed a nearby hill and down I came. When I approached an intersection where a lot
of cross traffic was, I did as instructed and it worked beautifully.
I came to a slow
a smooth stop just like it had regular brakes. That day I rode it all over using the method
prescribed by my friend. After I
finished my riding all day I returned the bike and I notice the bottom of my
right shoe had a hole in it.
If I had
continued riding I would have been stopping the bike with the bottom of my
foot. Being very resourceful I immediately cut some cardboard and put it in my
shoe for my sox was about worn out.
Here it was June
and I wouldn't get new shoes until school started in September.
I must say I wore
out a lot of card board that summer of '39. Had I been out on the farm I would have gone
barefoot, but in the city where I was living they were more civilized or so
they thought.
I didn't ride the
bicycle much after that for it was harder to use my left foot to stop it and my
cardboard in the right shoe didn't work very well.
There were some
other boys who rode the bike that summer for I can still remember some of them
screaming when the went through the stop sign on the boulevard and missing the
on coming cars.
I guess they didn't
master the foot braking technique, but at least they didn't wear out their
shoes !!
This post is shared at: Tell Me a Story
Such a fun story.... thank you for sharing that memory. :)
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