Accidents Happen

In the late 1950's and early 1960's a kid had a love for the bikes of that period. We had the two-tone bike and we had bikes that had baskets on the front to carry groceries in or just anything that we could put up there.

I had a little Chicawha dog and he loved to ride in the basket of my sisters bike. We had chrome fenders on our bikes and you could buy an accessory for the back fender to carry your books in saddle bags or put them under a chrome binder to hold a few books.

Then came the three speed bikes such as Schwinn. It didn't take long before Huffy got on the band wagon with a 3-speed bike as well as other American Bike Builders.

We rode our bikes to and from school, to the grocery for our mothers and to our friends house. We could stop off at the city Library and sit and read books in the coolness of the building on hot summer days.

We loved to ride them through the woods long before they made mountain bikes. We had trails all over the place and we had a great love for our bikes. The bikes gave us a freedom that we hadn't had before and it was something to contain us until we were old enough to drive.

Beside my dad Furniture and Appliance store was a very steep hill that dropped quickly to an alley at the back of all of the stores on that side of the street. My dad's building was three storied and it would drop that much as you rode down it. The alley was used but not a lot of traffic was there mostly trucks from the businesses and the people that owned the businesses.

Next door to my dads was a Hardware store and they were good friends of ours, next to that was a Five and Dime Store and then Rexall Drug Store with a Barber Shop in the basement the a Doctor's Office, Jewelers, And then a Bank with a drive thru in the alley.

I decided that I would take my new Schwinn that my dad had gotten me for my birthday and ride it up and down that hill. It was a breeze going down but a full stand-up climb to get back to the top. I had decided that I would ride it down one last time before riding my bike on home. When I got to the bottom I applied the brakes when I saw the New Lincoln that belonged to the lady whose husband owned the Hardware Store next door. I tried but they didn't stop me in time and I hit her right front passenger door, and flew over the car to land on the street on the other side and all of the wind was knocked out of me. As I was coming to I was thinking of how I was going to break this to my dad. Mrs. Ruffin came out of the car in a flash and was checking me all over to see if I was hurt. I wondered why she wasn't checking out her front door of her New Lincoln, but she was more concerned with me. I stood up and tried to walk around and I was still dazed. When I walked around to the other side to see the damage on the car, all there was, was a tire print and no damage. For some reason I start to smile and am glad that her car was not damaged from my bike hitting it. Then that is when I saw my bike for the first time. The shinny chrome front wheel was bent as if a strong man had twisted it in his hands.

I knew then that I wouldn't be riding my new bike for quite a while this summer. I slowly opened the sliding rear door of my dad's building and put my bike in the basement in a safe place until later. After making my apologies I walked home thinking of how I was going to tell my parents. I had decided that I would let them know as soon as possible and I would turn around and start with my dad first. I returned to the store and told my dad that I needed to talk with him. Soon he took me into his office and we set down and he asked me what was so important that I couldn't wait until we got home.

I told him about the accident and that since I was closer to the store that I thought that he needed to know first before he found out from someone else. He asked me what sort of punishment that I should get for running into someone's car and for messing up my bike. I said that I would work to pay for getting the tire mark out of her door and also to pay for my rim and tire, and that I would go next door and apologize to Mr. Ruffin for running into their car, and that if there was anything that I could do to help out around his store for thirty days I would do what ever he wanted me to do.

I went next door to say my apology and he smiled as I came in. I didn't know whether this was a god or bad thing, but I continued on. I told him what had happened and that I was sorry that it had happened and that I was willing to work for him for thirty days to defray the extra costs.

He told me to have a seat, and then he told me what had happened to him when he was a young man and what the man had told him after he apologized to him. "Sonny, you'll never know in a hundred years, have a great summer and do what little boys do when they are out of school."

He said, "I never had a little boy, but I was a little boy once and accidents happen and you became a man when you were willing to make things right and I respect this very much."

You know I enjoyed my summer very much and I never forgot what he said and that is another reason I liked Growing Up In A Small Town.