Here are some of the adventures I remember:
The father of one of my little league teammates was a policeman. Officer Walsh was in charge of the new radar unit. In the late 1950's the radar equipment took up the entire trunk of the police car. One day while riding as fast as I could on Los Coyotes Diagonal I spotted his car on a side street. As I passed he waved and then on his speaker announced "there goes a fast bike at 18 miles an hour!" Yeah, I was really flying that day! His car looked like the one below except it was Long Beach Police.
On several occasions my friend Michael and I rode our bikes to Shady Acres, a miniature golf course way over in North Long Beach. Don't really know how far it was but it sure seemed like a long way on bicycle back then. While we enjoyed the miniature golf, the real reason we went was for the Frosty Mug Root Beer in the cafe next door. That sure tasted good after a eighteen holes!
Growing older I felt the bike looked dorky so one day I went over to Sav-On Drug store and bought a can of black spray paint. I took the rack, fenders, and horn off the bike. After removing the wheels, I wiped it down and then sprayed that rig gloss black. I thought it looked really great ... really cool! Dad did not agree. He couldn't understand why I done it. "Dad, the bike wasn't cool - now it is!" He was speechless and went in the house. He never said another word about it!
The last experience for today is a ride Andy Z. and I took from Long Beach down to sunset Beach to visit our friend Mike. After arriving at Mike's house, he lived right on Pacific Coast Highway behind his parents antique shop, we went down to the beach to hang out. Later that afternoon Andy and began our trek home. At some point, we got mixed up and turned the wrong way. We didn't realize that we were going east instead of west. Finally, we stopped looked around and recognized our error and began to hustle home. It was beginning to get dark now and we were tired of pedaling. All of the sudden "bam" Andy's tire popped. There we were adjacent to the Naval Weapons Depot (didn't know that back then) in the dark and there were no lights or cars in sight! What to do? Cell phones hadn't been invented and we didn't have any money even if we could find a pay phone. So, I took off as fast as I could go totally worried about Andy. At one point, I wondered how fast Officer Walsh would catch me today! Finally I arrived at Andy's house told his parents what happened and called my mom. They went to get Andy and found him just fine. I do not think the two of us ever mentioned that experience again!
My adventures, and my speed, have changed over the years but one thing is for sure ... nothing can compare to the joy of riding a bike in the 50's or in 2010!
