______ *** Hi. This week’s FREE essay is something I wrote and posted on my old blog, Thunder Pie, in March of 2020. I’ll be back next week with a new original. -sb. *** _____ One summer evening in 1984, feeling good with a belly full of flounder and fries, I flung the screen door open, moved with the swiftness across our front porch, and climbed aboard The Mongoose. If you never saw The Mongoose, which I am guessing you never did: let me help you out with that. She was everything. Chrome. Red pads. Red knobby tires with park dirt up in the treads. Her pedals were heavier than a Huffy’s, more serious it felt like to me. Maybe more determined? I don’t know. It felt like a bike rider’s bike. Everything before The Mongoose had been K-Marty. Plastic chain covers that you had to kick off with your sneakers as soon as you were down in the alley far enough from the house.
Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime! Yeah, man, those were the days. Back in my time there was no mongoose, though, other than the Hot Wheels car. My fav mode of transport was a purple Ross (not to be confused with the slightly more prestigious–and hence, expensive–Royce-Union), with high handlebars, a banana seat and a sissy bar. My last no-speed bike (next up would be a Royce-Union 3-speed with hand brakes). Yeah, the Ross was my last foot-brake bike–from the old Christmas pics, it looks like I got my Royce-Union around 1969/70, when I was 10 or 11–but, man!, when I slammed that foot brake that sucker would screech like a banshee and I would lay out and practically step off that thing as it came to a stop. Man I loved that bike. So much so that my next bike, the R-U, was also purple, because that was my adolescent jam. Purple. And/or red. My hispanic heritage coming to the fore. Lol! Thanks, as always, for sharing, and for bringing up some fond memories of those young and innocent summer days.
Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime! Yeah, man, those were the days. Back in my time there was no mongoose, though, other than the Hot Wheels car. My fav mode of transport was a purple Ross (not to be confused with the slightly more prestigious–and hence, expensive–Royce-Union), with high handlebars, a banana seat and a sissy bar. My last no-speed bike (next up would be a Royce-Union 3-speed with hand brakes). Yeah, the Ross was my last foot-brake bike–from the old Christmas pics, it looks like I got my Royce-Union around 1969/70, when I was 10 or 11–but, man!, when I slammed that foot brake that sucker would screech like a banshee and I would lay out and practically step off that thing as it came to a stop. Man I loved that bike. So much so that my next bike, the R-U, was also purple, because that was my adolescent jam. Purple. And/or red. My hispanic heritage coming to the fore. Lol! Thanks, as always, for sharing, and for bringing up some fond memories of those young and innocent summer days.
Love this, Tom. Seems like we had a shared love of our bikes, man. Those were the days.
I was on the back of that bike smiling all the way -
Yeah you were, buddy.
And I’m glad.