I spent most of my childhood as a very young person, until I grew out of it. Not having a driver’s license at that time, my bike was my main form of transportation. This seems to be a common theme here this morning.
We used to ride everywhere around the neighborhood. The school was about 1/2 mile away. My best friend was about 1/2 mile away, and my grandparents, too. But it was in rolling hilly country, and everywhere was uphill, it seemed. This was back before most of us had anything but a single-speed bike, so you pedaled as far as you could, then got off and pushed until you got to flat country, or your legs recovered, or you were going downhill again. Only weaklings and little sisters got off their bikes early. You were a real MAN if you rode all the way to the top without having to push your bike.
There were some empty lots in the neighborhood, and some people who just had big back yards. They tended to become baseball and football fields. During one baseball game, my sister was at bat, and I was catching. She managed to whack me in the eye with the bat, and I had the best shiner I’d had in a long time after that.
The neighbor had a tree that was right on the property line, and overhung our house a bit. There was a bee’s nest under our eaves, so I climbed the tree to get a better look. The bees were so happy to see me up close and personal that one of them stung me on the eyelid. My eyelid swelled up so much it sagged shut, and I was a cyclops for a week.
There was a train track that went north up to Suttons Bay, the next town to the north of us. We used to ride our bikes along the side of that sometimes, or walk the tracks. Once I tried to wiggle every single railroad spike in the ties for about a quarter mile stretch of track, looking for a loose one. Those spikes were really cool things to have back then - go figure.
There was a public access to a small lake down the road. We used to go there every day during the summer to go swimming. The house next to here had a raft anchored in the lake, so that was another place to hang out. One day my cousin and I broke a board on the raft. We just went out, found a board to match it, painted it, sprinkled sand on the wet paint like the owner had done, and repaired it. Then we told the guy who owned the house. He thanked us nicely, but said we couldn’t use his raft any more.
I remember camping in the woods down by the stream in the valley. We would carry our sleeping bags down there, along with a can of beans or whatever we could hook out of the pantry. When we got older, we’d each grab a beer from our father’s stash. Our dads didn’t really object, as long as we brought the empty back for the deposit. It was a different world then.
Later on, we bought small dirtbikes (like 175-250s or so) and were able to get out farther and farther. We explored the 2-tracks and dirt trails all over the place. Once I was out riding across some field, and a 4WD truck came up to me. The driver was the owner of the land, and he asked very nicely that I not ride there any more. I found out later that he was the brother of the state’s governor. Wow - my brush with fame!
there was a landowner up there who was reputed to chase kids off with a shotgun full of rock salt, but I never met him.
