James Etheridge

Today is the day after Labor Day and another summer is unofficially in the books. The week after Labor Day was when we Boomers traditionally started back to school. In 1964, the first day of school was a day I took a big step toward independence and what I considered adulthood. That was the day I rode my bike to school for the first time.

I had a twenty-inch orange bike with a white banana seat, high handlebars, knobby tires and a clipped front fender. It was the type of bike that was typical and definitive of the Sixties. My father gave me a bike lock, which was basically a padlock with about a six-inch shackle that went around the front fork and the bar on the bicycle rack. That morning I ate my Frosted Flakes, put my Army surplus backpack across my shoulders, mounted my bike and headed down the driveway. I arrived at school, pulled up to the rack out front, put my bike in a slot, locked it up, put my keychain in my pocket and walked into the building. During the day, I would periodically take the keychain and key out of my pocket, admire it and show it to my friends. I had never felt more grown up in my nine-year-old life.

Getting to school took a little over thirty minutes because of the hills. My street in particular was a steep hill that dead-ended into another street at the top. You could ride a twenty-inch bike with one gear only so far up the hill. Then you would have to stand up and pedal before eventually getting off and walking the bike the rest of the way. Coming home in the afternoon was a different story. It took about ten minutes, tops. When you turned onto our street and started down the hill, gravity took over and no pedaling was necessary. By the time the bike hit the bottom of the hill, it felt like you were doing about ninety. You could coast easily up to our driveway and the garage with hardly any pedaling at all.

It wasn’t long after that I learned something else about growing up and adulthood. One morning I was heading up the hill on my bike, standing up and pedaling. I was just about to get off and start walking it when one of my feet slipped off the pedal and I came crashing down on the crossbar. The pain came on swiftly. I dropped the bike and sat down on the curb. By then the aching was pulsating intensely through my torso and all the way up to my tonsils. I rolled up in a fetal position in someone’s front yard and laid there for what seemed like an eternity, certain I was dying. No one came out of the house to help check and make sure I was alright. Gradually the pain subsided and I was able to stand up, stagger over to my bike, pick it up and walk it on up the hill. After that, I would only stand up and pedal so far. I would then get off and walk. I never told my parents what happened, but somehow I was certain I had cheated death.

The Sixties introduced the Latchkey Kid as more mothers entered the workforce. My mother went to work for a trucking firm in 1965 and I became one of those kids. There would be a number of kids from the neighborhood walking or riding our bikes both to and from school. I would come home from school in the afternoon, drop off my books, change clothes and go across the street to my friend Billy’s house to play baseball or basketball until my parents came home and it was time to come in for supper.

There was only one school bus that picked up and dropped off kids at our elementary school. Back then the primary schools were smaller and situated in neighborhoods so that kids could walk to school. The school bus picked up and took home the kids who lived across the main thoroughfares of the community where walking was not feasible.

There happened to be one other bus, but it was not one that was owned by the county and driven by a county employee. My father retired from the Atlanta Fire Department in 1967. He had a 1960 Chevrolet Apache long bed pickup truck and would pick me up after school, along with just about every other kid in our neighborhood. We would all pile in the back and when we got to our house the kids would all climb out of the truck and walk the rest of the way home. That couldn’t happen today. Nobody can ride in the back of a pickup truck anymore. Not adults, not dogs and certainly not kids. Too much liability.

By that time I had outgrown my little twenty-inch orange banana seat bike. I think I wound up giving it to one of my cousins. By that time I had acquired a cracked-up twenty-six-inch Sears bike. On the back, I put a twenty-inch rear wheel we had laying around. The bike looked and rode like a chopper. It was not practical at all for going up the big hill, although it was a blast riding it down.

Once we got into high school, the bikes went away. Nobody rode them to school anymore. There were buses that covered the surrounding neighborhoods. Some of us still walked, but usually just going home in the afternoon. Unless you lived really close by the school, walking to school simply was not practical.

On the first day of school in 1971, I took another giant step forward toward in independence and what I considered adulthood. I drove to school for the first time. That morning I ate my Frosted Flakes, climbed into my little yellow dune buggy, fired it up, put Three Dog Night in the eight-track and headed down the driveway. I arrived at school, backed into a parking place, set the lock between the clutch pedal and the steering wheel, climbed out and walked into the building. During the day, I would periodically take the keychain and key out of my pocket, admire it and show it to my friends. I had felt that grown up in my life once before, but it seemed long ago and far away.