On Christmas morning in 1957, my sister and I discovered a surprising gift, one which neither of us remembers ever asking Santa Claus to bring us. There, under our Christmas tree, stood a girl’s bicycle. We noticed an immediate problem: Was it a size 26, 27, or 28 inch bike? I don’t remember, but it was far too high for me. It may as well have been size 50.
My sister and I rolled it out on the front porch. It was the dead of winter. Not a good time for me to learn to ride. Not January or February either—or any other month. The bike was impossibly high. There was no way I could sit on the seat and reach the pedals at the same time.
Why did my parents buy a bicycle that was too big for a third grader? It wasn’t the same as purchasing clothes for a child, choosing a size bigger dress and sweater, and allowing the child to grow into them rather than buying clothes that fit.
We lived in a rural area. Maybe they couldn’t find the right height. Maybe it was on sale. Maybe it was all they could afford at Western Auto. But why such a big bicycle that a child has to learn to ride it standing up, growing into it like it was one of my older sister’s hand-me down dresses.
I walked around the bike on the porch, longing to be able to ride it, but I didn’t know how. So there it stood for months on its kickstand. Finally, in the summer of 1958, I took the beast by the horns. It was the summer before fourth grade. I led the bike down the front steps and out into our dirt driveway, put one leg over on the left of the bike, gripped the handle bars, and put one foot on a pedal. Then I tried to add the other foot.
How many times did I fall that day? Every day? I always got up and tried again. I had to force myself to ride my bike standing up. I couldn’t sit on the seat because my feet still wouldn’t reach those pedals. There was no way to adjust the seat much lower. My sister tried once, fell, and gave up on the spot. She went back in the house to read a book. She never learned to ride a bicycle. I was the family tree-climbing, bike-riding tomboy.
One night, I was getting into the tub to take a bath. My mother was at the sink, and I heard her gasp. My hips and backside were covered in bruises I received from bumping the horn of the bicycle seat. My best friend had died of leukemia after our first grade year. Her early symptoms appeared as bruises. She was only seven years old when she passed away. There was not much that could be done for childhood leukemia in 1956.
I assured Mama I was okay. I explained to her why I had the bruises. I was determined to master that bicycle, no matter what.
Success at last. I rode that bike every day. I looked for every bump in the yard to ride over, to feel the exhilaration of a brief moment of lift and speed. I never could ride in my grandmother’s yard next door. Her dirt driveway was full of sandy spots and loose stones, along with an occasional copperhead. In the evening, I rode to our backdoor steps, put down the kickstand, and headed inside for supper. In the mornings when I didn’t have school, I hopped on the bike after breakfast.
Sometimes Daddy came outside and joined me in the driveway. I wasn’t really sure if he could ride at all, but he was over six feet tall so he could ride a few yards before coming to a stop, his long legs giving him balance. I can still see him sitting on the bicycle in our driveway, trying to ride with the front wheel wobbling. I will never know if he’d ever learned how to ride one.
It was only as I grew older that I heard this story from my grandmother.
Daddy was born in 1920 outside Bullochville, Georgia, which is now Warm Springs. He spent his early years in what we call “up in the mountain” in Harris County near the tiny town of Shiloh. Times were indeed bad. He was a child during the Great Depression. Day-to-day life was hard for his parents. My grandfather had become deaf as a young man during basic training for World War I. Booms from heavy gunfire had damaged his hearing. He had to return home, and the family lived off farming and hunting.
As a boy, my father asked for a bicycle. My grandfather refused. They couldn’t afford one. Ten years later my grandmother told my grandfather that Daddy’s little sister really wanted a bicycle. My grandfather put his foot down.
“No! We didn’t buy one for her brother, so we’re not buying one for her either.”
As I thought back to Christmas 1957, the truth slowly dawned on me. My father wanted to give his children something he always longed to have, something we took for granted until much later. He bought Santa’s surprise, not only for us, but for the boy who always wanted a bicycle.