WHEN DADDY GOT ME MY FIRST AND ONLY BICYCLE

If there was ever a more wonderful neighborhood anywhere than ours, please tell me about it. Ah, Decatur St.  I remember you with love. 
                             our house
 Gordon school down the street.




                   As I look back I think of a Don Quixote expression: 
"Impoverished nobility." In those days I thought we all were surely in the upper class, just had no money.


Anyway one girl who lived near me owned a bicycle all the kids loved.    It was small, pink and  adorable. I learned to ride on her bike as did several other kids.  She obviously was a very generous friend. I pined for a bike of my very own. AT LAST..one day.


Daddy & I walked a block or so to a store on  Jackson Ave, which sold bikes along with other things like hardware type stuff.  It was next door to our drug store and a few doors away from Rialto Picture Show.


It had about 5 bikes for sale. Daddy offered to buy me  one which was one speed, black, the largest size you can buy and a boy's bike to boot. There was a bar between the seat and the handle bar.


 I completely forgot it was nothing like what I wanted. This eleven year old girl HAD TO HAVE IT!! We walked it along with us as we went home. What joy!


I never got to sit on the seat like the girl in the picture. I was too short!! 


I chose this pic because the girl is not wearing a helmet!! None of us did 68 years ago. 


So I would ride until I got tired  and then coast leaning against the seat. It was  perfect!!! 
 Exhilarating!!


I don't ever think I felt such freedom before or since then. My childhood Memphis in the forties was such a safe place. I would take off on my bike alone, deliberately alone,  and be gone for a couple of hours. Just riding and looking and thinking. In those days only children rode bikes unless you had a paper route. Now, obviously,  all ages ride bikes!!


By the time I started 7th grade at Humes, (7th thru 12th)
I had ridden it about 800 times...then that was it!! Never rode again. But some of the happiest times of my childhood were on that big, black, boy's bike. Thanks, Daddy!!


Actually as for the "impoverished nobility,'' I think we were a LITTLE like nobility but not all that impoverished!! I was a rich kid. Had a piano, bicycle, porch swing, backyard swing, tall tree to climb  and sit in...not to mention a wonderful family, church, and friends...rich kid indeed!!

Here is an old favorite hymn: 
PRECIOUS MEMORIES
Love, annie 
old7lady9blogger80@gmail.com

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