ME AND MY BIKE

By G. J. Forthun

1949. It’s summertime! One of the most fun times of my life! This is a big year in my family’s life, because everyone is graduating from something. My sister Mary graduated from what was then Wisconsin State Teacher’s college at River Falls. My brother Richard had graduated from Spring Valley High School, and my brother tom had graduated from 8^th grade. I was the only one who hadn’t “graduated”, but I had completed the 5^th grade and I was promoted to the sixth grade—to Miss Wold’s class, or as we boys called her, “Moldy Woldy.”

During summers, my bicycle was my life. I lived about 1 1/2 miles out of Spring Valley, Wisconsin, so I needed “wheels” desperately! On a hot summer afternoon I could go anywhere on my bike. Without my bike I was doomed to stay at home and try to find something to do. Sometimes I experimented with gravity. The road to town was Wisconsin Highway 29, and was paved with asphalt, so it was easy going. The first part of the trip to town was almost flat, with a very slight decline heading into Spring Valley, or “the Gulch”, as we sometimes called it. About half way to town the decline increased and so, of course, did your speed. A few times I started out in front of our house and didn’t pedal my bike even once, to see if gravity would take me all the way into town. It was very slow for the first 1/4 mile or so, and then I started to pick up speed. By the time I got to the outskirts of town I was really cruisin’—had to use my brakes to be on the safe side. It was fun riding my bike into town because it was all downhill—but that meant that heading back home at the end of the day wasn’t fun at all, because it was all uphill. I think I learned something about life during those countless trips to and from town for all those years. The downhill trips of life are great fun—but sooner or later you have to pay the price for the fun. Our lives can’t be all downhill if we want to live in the real world.

A lot of my activities during the summer took place on or in the river, just north of town. A 15 minute bike ride and a 10 minute walk took you to First Rock, which was named for a rock cliff along the banks of the Eau Galle River. The swimming hole was just up-river from First Rock, and was a bigger pool and was quiet and cool. Right at First Rock the river was narrower, and flowed quickly with a little whitewater. The cliff extended over the river, so it was usually in the shade when we went there in the afternoons. I can still remember the taste of river water in my mouth and the feeling of being cool and clean when I toweled off and put my clothes back on. We were always a little exhausted when we finished swimming, and on our way back to our bikes we had to be careful to not brush up against the nettles along the riverbank. After leaving the swimming hole I usually parted company with my friends and started the uphill trip to my home. I was always hungry when I got home and Mom was always ready to fix me a sandwich or was maybe already preparing supper. I still remember the smell of boiled potatoes and celery in the air.

My bike was really the center of my existence for many years while I was growing up. I remember my first bike—it was a 24 inch red girls bike that had been owned by Judy Bailey. I must have been in maybe the 1^st or 2^nd grade, and even at that time I remember that it was humiliating that I had to ride a girl’s bike. By the 3^rd or 4^th grade I was given another used bike—this time a 26 inch boys bike. I can still remember that I was excited about graduating to a 26 inch bike, and I spent a lot of time working with my brother Tom to repaint and restore it. During a period of a year or two, my brother Tom repaired used bikes and sold them for a little profit. I can remember suspending a bike rim between two wooden coke cases standing on their ends so that it could be rotated to see how straight it was spinning. It was necessary to tighten or loosen the spokes in the appropriate places to straighten the rim so it wouldn’t rub on the bike frame. Those were the days before 10-speeds. All the bikes I saw had the Bendix coaster brakes, and when the brakes didn’t work you had to replace the little metal ring with the knob on the end. Your bikes could be dressed up with fancy pedals and handle bar grips with plastic streamers that fluttered in the wind. During the parades on Memorial Day or 4^th of July or Homecoming all the kids rode their bikes somewhere near the action—sometimes dressed up with colored crepe paper braided through the spokes of the bike wheels.

In the photo on the previous page I see myself working on my bike. It seems like something always needed to be tightened or adjusted so it would work right. There was no rear fender, so needless to say I got a muddy stripe up the back of my shirt when it was rainy. I usually had my pant-leg rolled up so it wouldn’t get caught in the chain, or get grease or oil off the chain. I wasn’t rich enough to have a bike with a chain guard. Besides, chain guards were for girls anyway. From the picture you can see that I spent a lot of time in the sun—one of the hazards of being a young boy in the summertime. I can see the white rocks along the driveway in front of Dad’s office. I can remember painting those rocks white, and then moving each one back onto the driveway while I mowed the grass—then moved the rocks back again to the proper place.

I can remember mowing the lawns and pruning the shrubs and trees for many years, probably from the time I was about 11 or 12 until I was 18 and left home to join the Navy. After I was discharged from the Navy I lived at home during the summer for another 3 or 4 years while I was going to college. I can remember that there were three big lawns—one in front, one in back, and the third across from the motel. I used push mowers during these many years, and it was really too much to try to mow all three yards at one time—especially if the weather was hot. I usually mowed one or two of the lawns in one day, and the third yard maybe the next day. I can definitely remember developing a powerful thirst for a few beers by mowing those lawns on a hot day! Dad liked to have the shrubbery well pruned, so I usually trimmed the bushes and shrubs at least twice during the summer.

In the photo on the preceding page I can see Vic Traynor’s barn in the background. All I can remember about him is that my sister, Mary, did some babysitting for his kids when she was still living at home, and that he had a propensity to shoot dogs that were on his farm property. I can remember being outside in front of our house and seeing him shoot our dog Rusty, Fortunately for Rusty he was at least 50 yards away from the shooter and didn’t give him a very big target. He was hit in the lower joint of his left rear leg and it shattered the bone. After that Rusty had a very stiff leg and had to navigate on three legs—but be did pretty well under the circumstances, but he did manage to stay out of the crosshairs of Vic Traynor’s .22 rifle after that.

The photo also shows the Ed Bjornson sawmill across the road from our house. I don’t think that the sawmill was there when my dad moved our house a mile and a half west of Spring Valley on Highway 29, (1942), but the mill must have started up shortly thereafter. I can remember that my brother, Dick, worked there for awhile (I think maybe just one summer) piling lumber. That was in the days before forklifts did all the lifting, so it was very hard, hot, sliver-producing work. You absolutely had to wear gloves, except for some of the old-timers who had been piling lumber for many years and had hands that were calloused to the point that gloves were unnecessary. I can remember the little dump trucks pulling up under the conveyer belts that carried the sawdust and the slab wood up on the top of the hill in back of our property for many years. Some of the neighborhood kids like Vern Ellefson and Dave Litzell and I used to lay around in the wood and sawdust piles. There were also a lot of rabbits and other small game living in the piles.

When I was 8 or 9 years old I used to go across the road into the sawmill area and watch them work. They, of course, had a big buzz saw that ripped the long logs into planks, and they had a couple of smaller saws that cut up the scrap wood into slab wood for burning in stoves. The sawmill office was, I think, the first place that I saw the risqué pinups on the walls, advertising different products related to the lumber industry. Sometimes when the mill was closed down for the day or for the weekend I’d sneak over and get a peek at some of the pinups. The pinups of the 40’s and 50’s were pretty mild compared to the ones you see today. The most memorable thing about the sawmill was the noise—it was a constant whining sound that changed pitch as the different size logs went through the big buzz saw. Those guys that worked close to the saw must have suffered terribly from hearing loss—I don’t think that they wore ear protection in those days. The old timers were probably too tough for sissy things like ear plugs or noise mufflers.

NOTE: “Me and My Bike” was written as an exercise during a six-hour workshop on writing journals and autobiographical materials. The workshop was presented by Barbara Garypie, a lecturer from Marshall, Michigan, on May 19^th and 20^th, 1995, at the Clinton, Michigan library. This article is an example of how just one simple photo can elicit a great volume of memories and ideas. There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is proof that a picture is worth about two thousand words, which is the length of this article. Writing journals is a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it for anyone, regardless how good or bad you think your writing style is. Your children, grandchildren, etc., etc., and all generations of your family after you will be thrilled to have your journals, regardless how well or how poorly they are written. Just do it!! G.J.F.