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Bicycling my old rebuilt repainted (By my Dad, who was too cheap to get me a new one) fat tire heavy frame LaSalle bike. It was so uncool in the '60s when everyone had 5 or 10-speeds.. One of the things I got myself after HS grad was a cool 10-speed. Wish I still had that old LaSalle, many times Ive wanted to convert one like it to a lawn-mower engine drive... Anyway that old clunker got all over parts of Kent County Michigan for day-trips and over-nighters later on. Made a lot of personal cash mowing lawns and throwing Great Lake Effect snow over my shoulder. Most I blew on kid-things I suppose, altho I still have the two guns I paid for by working after school and Saturdays. Sunday was something they called "The Lord's Day" and everything not God-related came to a halt. From a Calvinist family, puritanical:eek:... Altho Time has healed many things, I still resent the force-feeding of religion 24-7.. tis rare that a church-door sees me.. One thing I remember distinctly was watching the original run of Star-Trek in the late 1960's. It gave hope to an often depressing time- said that there IS HOPE for humanity and that we might learn to grow, get along, and perfect society without killing each other... This was against the always looming threat of nuclear war and the expanding (Thank YOU LBJ, Robt S McNamara, and a cowardly Democrat Congress!) Vietnam "conflict" :s0106: with it's weekly death-toll reports and the guys in our community who came home messed up or in body bags...and for WHAT, eh?
I miss our old "fishing trips" out to the reservoir on the Thornapple river.. which consisted of taping m-80s (remember those, anyone)? to stones and throwing them into the waters behind the dam.. the resulting flash-boom was memorable, like a grenade.. We scooped up the fish which we sometimes sold to older guys who ate them, I suppose. Mostly carp and suckers. Never were bothered by DFW officers.. In retrospect we were fortunate no one lost fingers or hands... No one got an eye poked out by our BB guns or home made bows either.. Then we got cars and it was a wonder I survived to graduate HS...:D
 
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Sunday was something they called "The Lord's Day" and everything not God-related came to a halt. From a Calvinist family, puritanical:eek:... Altho Time has healed many things, I still resent the force-feeding of religion 24-7.. tis rare that a church-door sees me.

Growing up where I did, 12 miles south of the LDS church world headquarters I know exactly the situation. I was not a member until I got "converted" at age 12 by two pretty, high-school age gals, and subsequently baptized. But yeah, looking for someone to play with on Sunday :s0002:, and with Mormons, Monday nights were "Family Home Evening" so nothing there that evening either. First girlfriend's family, Devout, with a capitol D.
 
Forgive him Lord, for he knows not what he speaks!

The GT Performer was the quintessential chick magnet in the late 80's when it came out. A "survivor" in that condition these days would bring $900.
When I was 13 or 14 my best friend got a new Performer and his brother got a Dyno. They thought they were hot $hit. I had an older Schwinn Predator with Hutch stickers on it that was set up more for BMX with lots of light parts. We stopped at Burger King in Hillsboro for drinks one day and leaned (stacked) out bikes out front. Came out maybe 3 minutes later and mine was gone. POS thieves actually moved their new GTs to steal my old Schwinn. It was a bittersweet win.
 
Y'all need to watch/listen to this video... :D;)


I love 21 pilots, they're awesome!
It's funny how our priorities change through the years. My younger girlfriend DEFINITELY has a different outlook on life than I do. But we teach each other things. As I told her dad one day when we were talking, I was smokin weed, surfin, and banging bubblegumes the day she was born... He just laughed....
Sometimes I feel like she's still in that young "euphoria" stage and I'm in the "GET OFF MY LAWN" stage.
 
My own Big Step to Freedom was a new JC Higgens in 1956. Selling strawberries to Albertsons & mowing lawns & walking paper route funding All Things; notably a whole quarter (25 cents!!!) to pay for matinee (12c) popcorn (8c) and drink or sugar daddy (5c) left most of my wages from mowing ONE lawn (typically $1 but the BIG ones cost owner 1.50 or 1.75:rolleyes:).

One coming-of-age moment was shopping (!) for best deal on yet-another bike tire replacement, and learning to adjust the chain now & then as well as grease the bearings. Just how many miles did it take to wear them 26"ers down anyway?

I had 10 or 12 regulars, I was rolling in dough. Then the next summer there was that neighbor's daughter, a dark haired siren that never deigned to say my name, until she found herself alone at the State Fair & skillfully :cool:led me on for an afternoon & depleted my $9 wad-o-cash saved up for the big event.

My first real run in with deadbeats was the paper route, a few actually didn't want to pay for their paper delivered fresh each morning. And the mortal surprise, the 'buddy' that 'let me take his route first during his family vacation then extended while he recovered from appendectomy' suddenly is willing to collect the summer and try to keep 50% even before paying the news supplier. Good lesson I might have benefitted from by actually heeding the obvious warning signs.

Ah, the good old days!!!
 
I could only read the first three posts before I have to open up my mouth (keyboard).
Another thread got me to thinking about some of the stuff we did as kids or you just dont see it as much if at all now days. I remember riding our bikes everywhere as a kid. Setting up jumps to see who could fly the furthest. We would grab our poles and ride across town to go fishing. I cant count how many bb gun fights we had as kids. Going to the drive in was always a good time. In high school we had guns in our trucks incase there was a turkey to be had going home.

The good old days for sure. What did you do as kid..... Almost forgot putting your tongue on the frozen flag pole and yes we said the pledge of allegiance at that flag pole.

Well first off, outside was what we had to play with, and all that entailed.

We had a downhill side walk in front of our house on both sides of the street. We would stack ramps and see how high we could go. The John Day river was across Main St, through the neighbors yard and across Trowbridge Field, which was the perfect place to fly kites, have those BB gun fights, and have occasional flushing Ringneck scare the bejeezuz out of us. The drive in was the highlight of family entertainment. I wasn't in high school yet, but rifles or shotguns were seen in the back windows of many pickups parked at the school, probably most of them unlocked and several with keys in the ignition.

All of the above including being introduced to music (rock n roll to be precise)....
We dressed like soldiers to played war in the woods and captured the enemy more times than we were captured.;)
Then girls and cars invaded my childhood...:D

If there were only two of us, we didn't play Army, as we called it, we did Adam 12.

Spent my Paper route money...

Delivering the papers was one thing, but having to collect the money sucked... It always took at least a week to collect from everyone on my route.
 
Man, the Bikes we had when we were kids, today's kids have no idea what a "Good" Bike is even like!
First one was a brand spanking new Orange and White Schwinn StingRay, and a 6 Year Old Ura-Ki terrorized the farm roads and small town, and city park with that bike!
like this one!
1575741015135.png
Then A Little Ura-Ki got into BMX Racing, and got to build his first bike, a brand new DG alloy frame outfitted with the hottest parts and was super fast and light!
Kinda like this one!
1575741297832.png
And later, a "Real" Mongoose back when they still made one of the best there was!
Any one remember TUFFY Mags? Yup, the must have upgrade for any serious kid who raced!
like this one!
1575741436484.png

The coolest thing ever was to be able to Buy your frame of choice, and then choose what parts you wanted and build it your self! None of this "Off the Shelf, instant racer" stuff today's kids have! We would stop in at Bobs Bike Shop in S.E. Portland and dig through all the latest catalogs and pick and choose all the parts to go with our newest, latest, greatest frame! All the names were there, SkyWay, Redline, DG, Haro, GT, Cheetah, PK Ripper, and all the others! It was an awesome time to be a kid!
 
Cycle World on McLoughlin is where I went. Duncan was a real cool dude who helped me keep my old, converted to BMX bike alive.
 
The first bike I had was 'assembled' by my dad from bits he must have found from places unknown. It was painted primer red - the company he worked for had a LOT of primer red, and so, oddly enough, did our apartment - hard-wearing stuff he used to say. It also had a novel brake system - the rear brake actually operated via brake-blocks on the wheel rim, but the front brake set, although it had the same arrangement, simply dangled in mid-air, about six inches away from the wheel that was the same amount smaller....IOW, the VERY first BMX bike ever, 'cept nobody knew that, and they all laffed at me.
 
Dad bought my 20" bike second hand about 68. It was a standard bike with full fenders. He repainted it and looked nice, until I got my hands on it! Later it was converted into a "stingray". The seat tube was slanted back at more of an angle than most bikes and it was super easy to wheelie. By the time the banana seat had fallen apart it had knobbies on it and I would usually swap the seat from my 10 speed, but often rode it without any seat! That was 73 and 74. Cycle world became my go to place when we moved to Milwaukie in 74. Two of the three times I've ever ridden Tri-Met were trips to Cycle World.
 
Yep, I remember the RAVE for the Mongoose BMX with Tuff wheels. It was a Must Have back then to be one of the cool kids.
It was a nice "looking" bike, but it was a HEAVY TURD for most everything but jumping. I had one, and hated it.

I also had one of these, with the front tires of a YZ80 on it. It looked cool, but that was a turd for anything but cruizing.

post-2795-133037350773.jpg
 
I love 21 pilots, they're awesome!
It's funny how our priorities change through the years. My younger girlfriend DEFINITELY has a different outlook on life than I do. But we teach each other things. As I told her dad one day when we were talking, I was smokin weed, surfin, and banging bubblegumes the day she was born... He just laughed....
Sometimes I feel like she's still in that young "euphoria" stage and I'm in the "GET OFF MY LAWN" stage.


You DIRTY old man! o_O




;)
 
I found a Sears Screamer 3 speed "Drag Bike" at a yard sale years ago for $10 bucks and am restoring it! Back in the early 70's it was THE bike all the cool cats rode, and I always wanted one back then!
1575744048430.png
 
I loved my stingray, I kept it, squeaky clean, oiled, greased, tuned the spokes and changed more than a few rear tires.
When I lived in Pearl, Mississippi we lived by a huge sand pit (yeah, real beach sand). We would spend a majority of our day digging caves, making forts and finding sharks teeth (yeah, real sharks teeth)!!!!
I found the biggest one of any kid that pilfered the sand pit, it was 1 1/2"!!!! I had kept a full quart mason jar full of em & lost track of then after I enlisted in the Army.

Miss those days but managed to keep my childhood antics up until I turned 55 years old, then one morning I looked into the mirror and said so long Kiddo, time to grow up for reals....:p
 
I found a Sears Screamer 3 speed "Drag Bike" at a yard sale years ago for $10 bucks and am restoring it! Back in the early 70's it was THE bike all the cool cats rode, and I always wanted one back then!
View attachment 638637

There was only one kid in our neighborhood that had one, all us others could only drool when we saw it!!!
We were hands on bike guys and designed a CHOPPER bike!!! Yep, we cut the forks off an old bike and hammered the top end onto the bottom bolt end of my stingray thinking it was definitely rigged enough to handle the wrath of skinny Jimmy. I took off and noticed it was a bit different to control but got the hang of it quickly. I then headed for "The Hill". Kids hung out there to do dareing tricks or to go fast down it. I was taking it easy while heads were turning with shouts of "Cool, nice bike and the likes" then I got cocky and pulled a wheelie :D rode it for a while, was gaining mega speed so dropped it back down. Just as the front wheel was to touch down one of the "extended forks" came loose, the wheel fell off and fear ensued as skinny Jimmy hit the pavement.:eek:
 
My 61 Impala didn't need a key to start. If you left it in a certain position, all you had to do was turn the key insert. It came factory that way. Never locked it up and it was original and cherry (1980's).

We were well off with my Dad making the money teaching or as Vice Principle in charge of DISCIPLINE. He used hack paddles and practiced on me and my brother. I still don't believe in using belts ever, but my Dad did break a 3/4" oak hack paddle over a students rear on the first swing. He made the kid wait while he went to the woodshop to make a new one, came back and gave him 4 more. It is a long story, but the kid deserved it.

We lived on a bay in Bremerton, so lots to do always. Always some kind of fish and crabs to catch. Moved to a 10 acre farm when I started High School. Built a 24x60 ft 1 1/2 story horse barn with my Dad and brother. Riding dirt bikes and my sister's horse. Practiced shooting in the lower 5 acres. Lots of trucks in the High School parking lot with rifles hanging in the rear window. Hunting a pack of wild dogs at night in the gravel pit.

We didn't have a lot of money, but our lives were great and full of good memories.

My first car was a powder-blue '61 Impala. Had an aftermarket air conditioner in it, which was great in the humidity of the South. Great little car.
 

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