I am the lumberjack that harvests memories, not from wood, but from the thicket of my mind. I study crosscut sections for clues, some are more vivid or differ in shape from the rest, This story about one of those rings.
It was the year my little league team, the Orioles, won the championship, just like the real ones from Baltimore did. Brooks Robinson was my idol, the best glove in baseball, we both played the hot corner, third base and made all stars. Life was simpler back then, eating, sleeping and playing sports, seemingly 24/7. It was an unfettered time, absent of mortgages, the opposite sex and dependency issues. I was twelve years old.
In 1966 the man people called L.B.J was president, he would be a pariah and out of office within two years. He was figuratively in the wrong place at the wrong time; the place was Vietnam and the time involved an assassination in Dallas. This was a time when blueberries grew in a bramble rather than used as information storage devices. All I knew for sure about politics was the Lyndon Baines Johnson and I shared a birthday on August 27th and he had an affinity for ten-gallon hats.
My idol time was spent doing jigsaw puzzles made by Milton Bradley, Croxley’s were 500 pieces, Big Ben’s were 1,000 and York’s were 1,500; all were made from solid stock and like my life, interlocked with all the pieces intact.
The Beatles gave their last official concert that year while I played the clarinet, poorly. Many years later after my father died, I discovered Jazz and found out that he had seen some of the immortals, Benny Goodman, Glenn miller and Henry James, to name a few. I’ll have to ask him about it sometime.
It was a year of transition for both the United States and my family. In the country serious anti-war opposition was mounting. The year before in Los Angeles, Watts burned, Kent State, Woodstock and the hippie generation were soon to come.
For the family of five it marked a move out of the matchbox on Church Street. The house featured white clapboard and green shutters and an expansive porch with an outdoor couch with green striped slippery cushions. Out back were the barn and carport my dad had built.
My father mostly built that house too, fine job, just small. He learned carpentry in the Navy, but ended up a farmer, I never asked why. I well remember the grey barn with a hard packed dirt floor and a bare light bulb; it was his sanctuary. It smelled of a combination of musty dirt, tobacco and lubricant. His tools held steadfast in rectangular boxes, he may have possibly made, of fine reddish wood. On the primitive tool bench a few tools, a bronze oil can, a plane lying on its side, a hand drill and a wooden folded measuring stick all lined up for some action. The black shielded welding helmet that he used to fix a tractor or farm gadget hung on a rusty nail on the wall. This was his shelter from the storm of life.
In those days my only obligation was the delivery of the afternoon edition of The New Haven Register for which I received the princely sum of four dollars a week. Therein lies the rub, the Red Rocket, was badly in need of replacement handlebars were crooked and the rear basket looked like they lost in a demolition derby. The tires were slick, seal-like and the bell was silent. Subsequently, I went to my father with the dilemma, he laughed and with a sly smile said, ‘I gotta bike for you’. I thanked him and went back to the fun of being a kid.
Soon my “new” bike arrived, not in the station wagon, but in the back of the builder -who was -a -farmer’s beat up pickup truck. It looked like a corpse with rigor mortis set in under the plain white sheet. As he uncovered the monster I was awestruck, it was barbaric, one-of-a-kind and VERY GREEN.
He grabbed the thing and placed it against a tree for my inspection. It was formidable, almost bulky and could have come from a dungeon except for a coat of fresh, glistening paint. It didn’t have any newfangled gadgets such as a speedometer or a rear wheel mounted generator with a light. I didn’t care. It looked like it came from a mad scientist’s lab, Bikeula or Frankenbikenstein. Most objects in life are simply possessions or ephemeral, this was not.
The bike was a salvage project, The wheels came from here, the handlebars there, the fenders from who knows where. A leather seat came all the way from England. There was no written identification on the beast anywhere. The thick black snakes that served as tires were new, maybe even bought from the local bike and hobby store, Ed’s Enterprises. It was a bearcat and beautifully ugly. Like its namesake, it was menacing and moved in a lumbering manner due to its bulk. The green color however was the coup de grace, I’ve never seen it before or since, it is indescribable but will be as utterly recognizable as an old friend.
The bike was very durable as attested by a near head -on with a Dutch Elm. I got the wind knocked out of me and a splendid bark tattoo on my bare chest. Frank only had a few scratches and a bent kickstand. Within the next few years we were estranged, me to drivers’ education and him to the town junkyard from whence he came. No tears were shed at the time.
The bond between boy and bike was a big deal for this kid, it transported me to many places, only some of them on the ground. We slew dragons, chased the bad guys, hell, we even won the Kentucky Derby together. That bike was a collection of sorts, eclectic, as I am these many years later.
Imagine memory as a windshield to the soul, an extrapolation of the senses. It is not one perfectly Windex wiped and newspaper dried but violated with a ball peen hammer. Spider webs travel in various directions, some are more delineated than others. Perhaps one day you will see that apparition, whiff that scent, touch that texture, hear that sound or taste that taste, not in a dream but in real life and feel fulfilled, even if all else has changed.
On second thought, contemplate the possibility that you would be better off with the black and white photographic negative rather than the original, after all……Everyone needs an oasis.
J.F Gozzi
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