Last week I described how when I was a kid in Queens New York my brand new orange Schwinn Varsity 10-speed bicycle, was stolen from me at knifepoint. In shock I watched a stranger ride off on my week old bike as I stood there holding the lock and chain that the robbers let me have after I requested that I could at least keep the stuff I paid for myself.
After the thugs disappeared I walked around the park till I found someone that could direct me to a police officer. My experience with the police was less like an action TV cop show and more like a slow paced episode of Dragnet. There were no Starsky and Hutch chase scenes in a groovy 1970’s pseudo-sports car racing down the merry-go-round steps in order to cut in front of the street thugs and run them off the road without putting a scratch on my bike. Instead I sat and gave the police descriptions of the guys that stole my bike as we slowly drove around the main park roads in their squad car looking for the robbers. After a short while the cops must have assumed the thieves were long gone and the search quickly ended.
I slowly walked home clutching my lock and chain. When I got there I told my brother Neil, the only person home at the time, what happened and he insisted we go back to the park to search of my bike. We wandered around for a couple of hours looking for the guys but I am not sure what we would have done if we actually found them. Neil was not armed nor was he particularly athletic or intimidating. In lieu of doing anything useful but feeling that he had to have us do something, Neil had us two geeks wander aimlessly around the park on the hopeless quest of somehow getting my bike back.
My Dad was great. Even though money was a bit tight, the next day he took me back to the Schwinn Store and he purchased me an identical Varsity including the leatherette pouch with the two metal snaps to keep my chain and lock in. Again, deep down I wished I were getting the slightly bigger and fancier red Continental that I originally eyed at the store but at this point I was just overjoyed to have anything.
Even though I ended up soon outgrowing it, I happily kept that bike for close to 20 years. When I moved to Florida, the bicycle moved from my family’s New York garage to our new condo’s small porch. The Miami sun was not kind to it; the orange faded badly and the tires started melting creating a bumpy leopard-skin pattern. The bike later followed me to college and then to the next five places I lived getting plenty of use along the way.
Years later I started making decent money and began to entertain thoughts of getting a new bicycle. I was hanging out in Brooklyn New York with my friends Maddie and Lori. Lori worked with a bunch of Russian immigrants at a stained glass restoration company and one of these guys casually mentioned that he had a couple of unique bicycles to sell. He said that before his new roommate defected he kept requisitioning bikes from the government. When he had 12 of them he fled the Soviet Union selling the bikes one at a time along the way to pay for his trip to the U.S.
One evening we drove to the apartment the Russian guy shared with three other immigrants in Queens to look at the last two bicycles he had left. They seemed in mint shape and since we both kind of needed new bikes, we thought it would be great to have these totally different, funky bikes with Russian names plastered on the side of them. The guy told us some sad story and made us a pretty good deal of $250 for both bikes. We agreed and crammed them into our little Toyota and drove back to Brooklyn.
The next day Lori and I started to realize that maybe we had been taken advantage of. The Soviet Union was not known for its quality workmanship and these bikes were no exception. I was loosening the bolt to raise the seat and it snapped in half. This was a bad sign especially when I went to a hardware store to replace the bolt and they could not find anything in stock that was the same odd millimeter. The Russian bike might not have ever been stolen but I think I was ripped off just the same.
The next few years I kept striping parts off my old faithful Schwinn Varsity to make repairs on the Russian bike. Eventually the Soviet bike had the seat, brakes, handle bars, chain and casing from the Varsity. None of the numerous repairs was easy because none of the nuts, bolts and screws on the bike were standard American sizes. Eventually the bike frame cracked and I was done with it. I ended up the completely frustrated owner of two non-functional bicycles. At that point I could not bring myself to rebuild the Schwinn and I eventually sold the two bikes to some guy in the neighborhood for $45 bucks. That was more then a decade ago and I have not owned a bicycle since then. I wonder if I should look around on E-bay for an early 70’s red Schwinn Continental. http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/park_photos/popup.php?propID=Q015&image=photos/Queens/Q015_1078859372.jpg
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
BIKE (part 1)
In last week’s blog I mentioned the lack of petty crime in the New York City neighborhood I grew up in. After giving it a little more thought I seem to recall some less then rosy incidents like my brother getting mugged. Well there also is the bike story.
I am the youngest of five kids. People love to say how the baby of the family gets spoiled but what I remember getting is ‘hand me downs’. Not just clothing; my first three bicycles had all been used and abused by my older siblings. My rickety tricycle, my first two-wheeler and even my first real bike had all been someone else’s firsts before they were mine. They all worked but had seen much better days. Heck they had seen better decades.
Unfortunately for my parents I kept growing and by the time I hit 11 years old I was taller then one of my siblings and well on the way to outgrowing them all. I was already too big for any of the remaining ‘crap-cycles’ left in the garage after one of my brothers moved out to college with the larger black bicycle. One day I was riding the green smaller bike when the front wheel went flying off and I almost flew over the handlebars into a busy street. Of course the wheel might have become weakened when a few hours earlier I had been riding on a muddy shit-laden horse trail, jumping benches and riding down the long flight of stairs that led to a merry go round in a nearby park. No matter the cause, my Mom now deemed the bicycle ‘dangerous’.
My parents told me if I behaved I might get a brand new bicycle for my birthday. Despite my unchanged usual obnoxious behavior and it being a couple of months away from my birthday, since the only bike left in the garage that I could almost fit on was deemed ‘dangerous’, my Dad took me to the Schwinn Bicycle store that his friend owned.
Like thousands of Baby Boomer children before me, my Dad and I walked around the rows of glimmering new Schwinn bikes. I had my eye on a big fancy red 10-speed model called the Continental. Unfortunately my Dad and his friend had other ideas for me and picked out an orange version of the slightly more generic 10-speed Varsity model. Although not my first choice it was leaps and bounds above any of the old bikes back at the house. Hell, I had never even been on a bike that had ‘speeds’ to change before that day.
The deal my Dad made with me was that he would pay for the bike but I would have to pay for all the accessories with my own savings. This being New York, I picked out a chain and lock. I also purchased a little leatherette pouch with two metal snaps that hung under the seat to keep the chain and lock in. I loved my bike and was extremely proud to ride around the neighborhood on it. It was by far my most extravagant possession, for the week I owned it.
I hated Junior High school and had very few friends there. My brand new bike was sitting home in the garage and I was stuck in class. It was calling out to me. I really wanted to show it off to everybody in the neighborhood. I could not take it any more and I snuck out before my last class started. I raced home to my new bright shiny orange Schwinn Varsity. I rode over to the park, which was pretty quiet because most of the neighborhood kids were still in school. I was practicing changing speeds trying to get the hang of doing it without jerking the bike and making the nasty embarrassing clunking slipping metal sound.
As I rode down the wide path near the merry-go-round three young men ran up to me. One of them stepped right in front of the bike and as I stopped he stepped over the front tire and put his hands on the handlebars. Another stood next to me and the third stayed a few steps behind us. The Latino guy in front said that this bike looked like his brother’s that had been stolen. I told him that it was definitely mine. He made several more comments about checking the serial numbers and that he was sure it was not mine. Eventually the guy standing next to us got tired of waiting for me to get the hint and he pulled a knife out of his pocket and pushed it against me. He simply said ‘just get off the bike”.
As I climbed off I told the guys that my Dad just bought the bike and he would kill me if I lost it. The first guy hopped on anyway but before he could ride away I asked him if I could at least have the chain and lock. Surprising, he said yes and as he sat on the bike I reached behind the seat, unlocked the two metal snaps on the leatherette pouch and took out my chain and lock. I stood there in the park, holding my chain and lock, quietly crying as I watched two of them run into the woods and the other riding off down the street on my shiny new bright orange Schwinn Varsity.
Strangely enough, that is not the only story I have involving a bicycle and getting ripped off in New York but you will have to wait till next week for that one.
I am the youngest of five kids. People love to say how the baby of the family gets spoiled but what I remember getting is ‘hand me downs’. Not just clothing; my first three bicycles had all been used and abused by my older siblings. My rickety tricycle, my first two-wheeler and even my first real bike had all been someone else’s firsts before they were mine. They all worked but had seen much better days. Heck they had seen better decades.
Unfortunately for my parents I kept growing and by the time I hit 11 years old I was taller then one of my siblings and well on the way to outgrowing them all. I was already too big for any of the remaining ‘crap-cycles’ left in the garage after one of my brothers moved out to college with the larger black bicycle. One day I was riding the green smaller bike when the front wheel went flying off and I almost flew over the handlebars into a busy street. Of course the wheel might have become weakened when a few hours earlier I had been riding on a muddy shit-laden horse trail, jumping benches and riding down the long flight of stairs that led to a merry go round in a nearby park. No matter the cause, my Mom now deemed the bicycle ‘dangerous’.
My parents told me if I behaved I might get a brand new bicycle for my birthday. Despite my unchanged usual obnoxious behavior and it being a couple of months away from my birthday, since the only bike left in the garage that I could almost fit on was deemed ‘dangerous’, my Dad took me to the Schwinn Bicycle store that his friend owned.
Like thousands of Baby Boomer children before me, my Dad and I walked around the rows of glimmering new Schwinn bikes. I had my eye on a big fancy red 10-speed model called the Continental. Unfortunately my Dad and his friend had other ideas for me and picked out an orange version of the slightly more generic 10-speed Varsity model. Although not my first choice it was leaps and bounds above any of the old bikes back at the house. Hell, I had never even been on a bike that had ‘speeds’ to change before that day.
The deal my Dad made with me was that he would pay for the bike but I would have to pay for all the accessories with my own savings. This being New York, I picked out a chain and lock. I also purchased a little leatherette pouch with two metal snaps that hung under the seat to keep the chain and lock in. I loved my bike and was extremely proud to ride around the neighborhood on it. It was by far my most extravagant possession, for the week I owned it.
I hated Junior High school and had very few friends there. My brand new bike was sitting home in the garage and I was stuck in class. It was calling out to me. I really wanted to show it off to everybody in the neighborhood. I could not take it any more and I snuck out before my last class started. I raced home to my new bright shiny orange Schwinn Varsity. I rode over to the park, which was pretty quiet because most of the neighborhood kids were still in school. I was practicing changing speeds trying to get the hang of doing it without jerking the bike and making the nasty embarrassing clunking slipping metal sound.
As I rode down the wide path near the merry-go-round three young men ran up to me. One of them stepped right in front of the bike and as I stopped he stepped over the front tire and put his hands on the handlebars. Another stood next to me and the third stayed a few steps behind us. The Latino guy in front said that this bike looked like his brother’s that had been stolen. I told him that it was definitely mine. He made several more comments about checking the serial numbers and that he was sure it was not mine. Eventually the guy standing next to us got tired of waiting for me to get the hint and he pulled a knife out of his pocket and pushed it against me. He simply said ‘just get off the bike”.
As I climbed off I told the guys that my Dad just bought the bike and he would kill me if I lost it. The first guy hopped on anyway but before he could ride away I asked him if I could at least have the chain and lock. Surprising, he said yes and as he sat on the bike I reached behind the seat, unlocked the two metal snaps on the leatherette pouch and took out my chain and lock. I stood there in the park, holding my chain and lock, quietly crying as I watched two of them run into the woods and the other riding off down the street on my shiny new bright orange Schwinn Varsity.
Strangely enough, that is not the only story I have involving a bicycle and getting ripped off in New York but you will have to wait till next week for that one.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
HOME
born in a quaint little town called New York City. OK, maybe quaint it ain’t, but it will forever be my hometown. Back when I was growing up there, the ‘City’ was financially bankrupt. Social services were cut, unemployment rates were sky high, inflation was rampant, there were constant strikes so one week there would be no garbage pick-up, the next week no public transportation and so on. It was mess. Times Square was full of porno theatres, the bridges were collapsing, crime was up, the streets were filthy, and the subway trains were covered with graffiti and unsafe to ride. (With glowing images like that I really should start writing travel brochures.)
Luckily the part of New York City I lived in was not that bad. It was an old German neighborhood that was starting to become a little more Italian. We had very little petty crime in our area although there was the occasional mafia hit like in 1979 when the City’s big crime boss Carmine Galante** was gunned down in a restaurant two miles from my house. As New Yorkers you take that it all in stride and still find a way to be proud of your town.
In the late 1980’s the ‘City’ went through an amazing renaissance and truly became a wonderful place to live but by that time I was long gone. As a kid, the concept of me living in Texas seemed about as likely as the Twin Towers being knocked out of the skyline. As you get older you realize you just never know what might happen. When I visit New York I still feel a comfortable sense of familiarity but it does not feel like home anymore.
When I was in the middle of those ever so fun Junior High School years, my folks moved me down to sleepy serene Miami Florida. Calm by New York standards, I lived in Miami during the riots of the 1980, the Mariel Boatlift and the Cocaine Wars. It was tough adjusting to such a different lifestyle but in hindsite it has become obvious that spending my formative years in Florida had a profoundly positive effect in creating the person I have grown up to be. It took awhile but I grew to love Miami and eventually felt like it was as much my hometown as New York was.
While I was attending college in Tallahassee Florida my folks moved out of Miami so when I graduated, even though they offered me a room in their new Orlando house, I felt I did not have a town to call home anymore. Over the years that followed I bounced around several different Florida cities and even briefly moved back up to New York but I never really put down any deep roots. Everywhere I lived felt like a place I was staying until I found a real home.
I’m sure it was this lack of feeling like I belonged anywhere that kept me on the road during the 15 years I traveled for work. A comfortable routine developed, a few months of hard work in some city, then a few weeks of visiting friends all over the country, a quick trip to whereever I called homebase at the time for a few weeks, a little more traveling to hang with friends and then back to work. Over and over this cycle repeated. As issolating as it was, I loved that I spent long enough in a city to really get the real feel of the town and it’s people.
I was away from home so much that it led to some odd events. Three different times friends moved all my belongings to a new house that I never saw until I got home. They would tell me about the place I was going to live and sent me the address with a map so I would know where to come home to. Friends in various cities all over the country had rooms in their houses that they refered to as Dan’s room because I frequently visited for several weeks at a time. My last house in St Pete Florida was in a cool funky neighborhood only nine blocks from the beach yet I knew I would not be there for a long time because the city never really felt like home to me.
Sometimes I think back to those days and I miss the adventures. I really miss seeing my friends and family. I do not miss the lonliness and I really do not miss that feeling of knowing I could fit in anywhere but that I belonged nowhere. It was on one of these many trips that I met my wife. I always said when I met the right person I would stop traveling and I did. I met her while working just outside of Dallas and I have pretty much been here ever since.
That was over seven years ago and I have to admit that until recently it still felt like this was just another stop on the highway and that I really did not belong here. That changed a few weeks ago when my wife and I bought a house. A neat house that I think we will be really comfortable in. A cool place that I can really call home and mean it. I’m not saying this is the last house I will ever buy and I am not saying that I will live in Texas until I drop dead but maybe now I might finally feel a little less like a nomad and a little more like I have a city to call home. **http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_Galante
Luckily the part of New York City I lived in was not that bad. It was an old German neighborhood that was starting to become a little more Italian. We had very little petty crime in our area although there was the occasional mafia hit like in 1979 when the City’s big crime boss Carmine Galante** was gunned down in a restaurant two miles from my house. As New Yorkers you take that it all in stride and still find a way to be proud of your town.
In the late 1980’s the ‘City’ went through an amazing renaissance and truly became a wonderful place to live but by that time I was long gone. As a kid, the concept of me living in Texas seemed about as likely as the Twin Towers being knocked out of the skyline. As you get older you realize you just never know what might happen. When I visit New York I still feel a comfortable sense of familiarity but it does not feel like home anymore.
When I was in the middle of those ever so fun Junior High School years, my folks moved me down to sleepy serene Miami Florida. Calm by New York standards, I lived in Miami during the riots of the 1980, the Mariel Boatlift and the Cocaine Wars. It was tough adjusting to such a different lifestyle but in hindsite it has become obvious that spending my formative years in Florida had a profoundly positive effect in creating the person I have grown up to be. It took awhile but I grew to love Miami and eventually felt like it was as much my hometown as New York was.
While I was attending college in Tallahassee Florida my folks moved out of Miami so when I graduated, even though they offered me a room in their new Orlando house, I felt I did not have a town to call home anymore. Over the years that followed I bounced around several different Florida cities and even briefly moved back up to New York but I never really put down any deep roots. Everywhere I lived felt like a place I was staying until I found a real home.
I’m sure it was this lack of feeling like I belonged anywhere that kept me on the road during the 15 years I traveled for work. A comfortable routine developed, a few months of hard work in some city, then a few weeks of visiting friends all over the country, a quick trip to whereever I called homebase at the time for a few weeks, a little more traveling to hang with friends and then back to work. Over and over this cycle repeated. As issolating as it was, I loved that I spent long enough in a city to really get the real feel of the town and it’s people.
I was away from home so much that it led to some odd events. Three different times friends moved all my belongings to a new house that I never saw until I got home. They would tell me about the place I was going to live and sent me the address with a map so I would know where to come home to. Friends in various cities all over the country had rooms in their houses that they refered to as Dan’s room because I frequently visited for several weeks at a time. My last house in St Pete Florida was in a cool funky neighborhood only nine blocks from the beach yet I knew I would not be there for a long time because the city never really felt like home to me.
Sometimes I think back to those days and I miss the adventures. I really miss seeing my friends and family. I do not miss the lonliness and I really do not miss that feeling of knowing I could fit in anywhere but that I belonged nowhere. It was on one of these many trips that I met my wife. I always said when I met the right person I would stop traveling and I did. I met her while working just outside of Dallas and I have pretty much been here ever since.
That was over seven years ago and I have to admit that until recently it still felt like this was just another stop on the highway and that I really did not belong here. That changed a few weeks ago when my wife and I bought a house. A neat house that I think we will be really comfortable in. A cool place that I can really call home and mean it. I’m not saying this is the last house I will ever buy and I am not saying that I will live in Texas until I drop dead but maybe now I might finally feel a little less like a nomad and a little more like I have a city to call home. **http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine_Galante
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