I had very young parents; my mother was merely fourteen when I was conceived and my father eighteen. My Grandmother; on my mother’s side, did everything in her power to convince my mother that she was too young to have children and that she should weigh her options. I guess it was lucky for me my parents had a rather rebellious spirit, and they ran off to Gatlinburg Tennessee to get married. Like many people, I don’t remember much about the first three years of my life; however, there are moments that one simply cannot forget and just a few months before my fourth birthday I was told that my mother left to go on her very own private journey and that she wouldn’t be coming back home. I was told that she went to a place called heaven and that even though she couldn’t be with me anymore she would always be watching over me. At that time I spent a great deal of time watching television, so I had imagined that this heaven place must have been a place full of Magic, adventure, and fun. I could always turn on my television and see what other people in the world were doing. As a result, I imagined that this heaven place must have had its own television sets and that there were special cameras in the sky which allowed her to see what I was doing at any given time. At nevertheless, it just made me feel safe to think that my mom was watching out for me wherever I went. But I missed my mom very much and I always wished she would just come home.
My Dad and I moved around a few times after my mom died, but for the longest time we lived in the city of Hammond in Northwest Indiana. Let me tell you my dad had some very strange business associates and some very interesting friends. Many of them rode motorcycles and sometimes they even rode their motorcycles in the house. They made lots of noise, the music they listened to was dark and loud and sometimes they would fight and break things. During “business hours” I was generally supposed to be in bed asleep, but it certainly wasn’t hard to hear what was going on downstairs and I was all too often incredibly frightened by the fighting and the loud music, I often hid under the covers and sometimes under the bed and I have to admit those were the times I missed mom the most.
All those crazy people seemed to like my dad a lot though, maybe because he always seemed to be doing something for everyone. Many times people would just stop by for a few minutes and buy something from my dad and be off again. I asked my dad what he did for a living one time and he called himself an entrepreneur. He told me that meant that he was a sales man. As a child I never really knew what he was selling. Whatever it was didn’t matter much to me I loved my dad, he was all I had in the world and I thought he was the greatest dad ever!
Sometimes after a long night of “doing business” when everything got quiet I would lay awake and wait for my dad to come up the stairs and walk past my room to go to bed. That is how I knew everything was ok, but sometimes when he didn’t I would go down the stairs to check on him. Boy after a long night of doing business he could really sleep hard. I have to admit sometimes he slept so soundly it made me kind of worried. Sometimes I even tried to carry him upstairs and put him to bed all by myself. He was really heavy but I always found a way to do it. I was maybe seven or eight attempting to carry a one hundred and fifty pound man to his bed. It was always a challenge but for some reason it would make me feel much better knowing that my dad was in his bed. I liked to look after my dad and I did because I felt that he was all I had in the world.
One late spring day when I was about nine or ten years old my dad and I packed up all of my clothes along with a few of my toys and we drove to my aunt and uncles house in Black Oak. Black Oak is a suburban neighborhood inside of Gary Indiana. I often spent the night with my aunt Sandy and my uncle Scott and their young daughter Jori, so I just figured I was going to spend the weekend with them. But the way my dad acted on the way there made me think he was going to be gone a really long time. I have to admit I did get a little sad. I didn’t want my dad to go away without me my mom had already been gone a really long time. On the way there my dad and I stopped to visit my mom’s grave. We cleared off the grave stone and put flowers in her vase. That was the only time I ever saw my dad cry. Later that day as my dad left me with my aunt and uncle. He told me that I was going to have to be tough and look after myself for a little while. He said that I needed to be a good boy for my aunt and uncle. I wondered who was going to take care of him when he fell asleep like he sometimes did if I wasn’t going to be there. A child can only be so tough and although I was a very resilient young boy I was growing sad and melancholy on the inside.
A few days later my aunt Sandy took me to the store. She told me I could pick out a new bicycle. I never really had a new bicycle before so I was really excited. I practically saw it shine from across the store and as we walked up to it I knew it was the one. Now this wasn’t just any bike, it was a brand new, Sparkling clean, backpedaling, brake's on the handlebars, foot pegs, chromoly, make the neighbor kids jealous, awesome Bike! It was love at first sight! I spent the whole next day just gliding up and down the street. Later that day my aunt sandy called me in to eat supper, so I laid my bike down by the front porch and went in to eat. When I finished eating I went back outside to ride my new bike some more and it just wasn’t where I left it, I thought “did I leave it somewhere else, did my aunt or uncle move it?” I told my aunt and uncle that I couldn’t find it so they came outside and we looked all around. But after a while I had to face the ugly truth, someone stole my brand new bike. I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. That night I felt more alone than ever, my mom was gone, my dad was gone, and now my new bike was gone. I thought everything I love is always being taken from me. Why me? I tried really hard to be tough and I really tried not to cry, but that night I cried myself to sleep I was tired of being tough.
The next day there was a knock on the door. A boy that lived only a few blocks over noticed me riding my bike the day before and came over to see if I wanted to go for a bike ride with him. He was my same age, very thin, extremely energetic, and had shoulder length hair with a cowlick in the front. He introduced himself as Jeremy O’Brian and he had a bike that was even nicer than the brand new one I had, he called it a diamondback. When I told him that my bike had been stolen and that I didn’t have a bike to ride with him he said that he had a frame at home and that I could probably have if I wanted it, but that he would have to ask his dad. To be honest I didn’t really know what a frame was, I thought it was a brand name of a bike, so I asked my aunt if I could go to see it. She said that it would be ok and we set off down the street, I was very excited especially because I thought if Jeremy’s bike was that nice this frame was likely going to be equally as shiny and cool.
When we got to Jeremy’s house he told his dad what happened and his dad said that I could have the frame because it was just in the way anyway. Then he took us to the garage to show it to me. I looked up to where he was pointing and there it was hanging on a rusty nail high up on the garage wall. When I looked at it I thought it looked sort of sad just hanging there rusting all alone, it sort of reminded me of myself, it was missing all its parts. I stood there looking at it thinking to myself “what on earth am I going to do with that thing?” I knew I couldn’t ride it like that; but I didn’t want to seem stupid or rude, so I didn’t say anything. The chrome was very dull and it didn’t shine like my new bike did. I could tell there were stickers on it at one time because it was awfully dirty in spots and it was scratched and rusty in other places. Nevertheless, I couldn’t have imagined the journey which that bicycle frame was going to set me and my new friend off on. After a few moments Jeremy’s dad broke the silence when he asked me “do you want it?” I really didn’t know what to say so I just blurted out “yes”, he then got a ladder and got it down for me.
Once I had been handed the frame Jeremy started handing me all these extra pieces that he was walking around the garage picking up. Some of the pieces were really greasy he called them bearings and then there was this thing he called a goose neck. It just looked like a black piece of metal to me and then he gave me a broken chain and the missing link. All of a sudden I realized what I was going to have to do. I was going to have to build my own bike. At that very moment I began visualizing what it was going to look like once it was completed and it was perfectly beautiful. Jeremy told me that was all of the parts he had, but that he knew some other guys around the neighborhood who might have some of the other parts I needed and when I got all the parts he would help me put it all together. So I slung the chain over one shoulder and put the frame up on the other shoved the greasy bearings and assorted pieces into my pocket and took them back to my aunt and uncles house and put them in a special spot in the garage.
A few days later my aunt, my little cousin, and I went to visit my aunt Sharon and my aunt Jean as we often did. They were next door neighbors and they only lived about ten blocks away and I had two cousins who lived with them named Tony and Scottie who were nearly the same age and only a year and nine months older than I was. Tony told me that he heard that my bike had been stolen, that is when I told him about the frame I’d been given. He said “I think I have some extra parts in my dad’s garage you can have them if you want them.” So we went out to the garage and Tony gave me these weird looking handlebars that were all curly, a banana seat, and these things he called forks. He said most of the parts were from his old ten speed except the banana seat which was from his sisters old bike. I didn’t know what some of those parts were for, but I thanked him for what he had given me and put them all in my aunt’s car. Then Tony said that when I was ready to put it all together to let him know and he would be glad to help.
We got back home later that afternoon and while I was putting the new parts Tony had given me with the other parts Jeremy gave me there was a knock at the front door. It was Jeremy and he was there with a friend of his named Oscar. Oscar was a chubby younger kid that wore these huge coke bottle bottom glasses and looked kind of dirty. But Jeremy said that Oscar had some of the missing parts at his house I might be able to use. So we opened my aunt and uncle’s small wooden overhead garage door and I showed them what new parts I had collected. Once we made a mental note of what we had we started off to Oscar’s house to see if he had any of the missing parts I needed.
Oscar’s yard looked sort of like a junkyard and Oscar had all kinds of weird and interesting things, he even had a small motorcycle, or as he called it a mini bike. I told Oscar and Jeremy. “Wow that is really cool my dad would like that a lot he likes motorcycles I think he may even sells motorcycle parts.” Oscar took us into his garage, it was kind of a dark place and very messy, but Oscar seemed to know where everything was. After rummaging around for a few minutes he gave me a box. Inside the box were pedals and some metal ring looking things and a couple of knobby bike tires. Oscar and Jeremy then told me that they thought I almost had everything I needed to put a bike together, so I took everything Oscar gave me and went home and put them next to the other parts. I stood there looking at all of those parts for a few minutes wondering just how I was ever going to get a bike that I could ride out of all these mixed up pieces. I figured I would just have to wait and see, so I heaved a sigh, shrugged my shoulders, took a shower and went to bed.
Jeremy came knocking on our door late the next morning, when I answered the door he began telling me that he got new mags for his bike that morning and that I could have his old rims. So as quick as you could say mag rims I had my shoes on and we were off down the street. I walked but Jeremy was riding his bike and all the while he would do all these interesting tricks. More than just wheelies he would put on his front brakes and do backward wheelies, he called that trick an indo and he would also make his bike just jump, even without a ramp I thought “I have got to try and do that stuff if I only had a stupid bike.” Finally when we got to Jeremy’s house he handed me the two rims and a couple more of those greasy bearing thingy’s and we headed to Oscars house to get Oscar. Oscar got on his bike and we took everything back to my aunt and uncles house. I rode with Jeremy, I stood on his back pegs.
Once we got back to my house I called my cousin Tony and he was soon on his way and the four of us spent the rest of the day in my aunt and uncle’s driveway attempting to put together a bike out of all those crazy mixed up pieces. First we laid everything out, the frame and the bearings, the forks and the handlebars, the pedals and the seat, the crank, and the chain. Little by little that sad looking rusted out frame with all the missing pieces was beginning to look like an actual bike. The four of us spent the rest of that day trying to figure out how to build a bike, but what we were actually building was even more important. We laughed and giggled at each other when we made mistakes, but we felt proud when we overcame them on our own. The bike was just about finished when we realized we didn’t have inner tubes to put inside the tires, but my Aunt Sandy said that they weren’t that expensive and that she would take us to buy them. So we all piled in the car laughing, joking and giggling all the way there and back about how much grease we had all over us. When we got back we put the tubes in the tires and put the tires and rims on the frame and pumped air into the tires. Then we propped the bike up on its kickstand on the driveway stood back and looked at what we had created.
Actually I have to admit it was pretty hideous looking and nothing at all like what I had envisioned. It had a rusted chrome frame, a black gooseneck and ten speed handlebars wrapped I orange leather. It had reddish-orange forks, rusty cranks, a dirty white banana seat, and huge pedals with these “god awful” reflectors. I couldn’t help myself as we were all laughing about how ugly it was I had to give it a name so I said “I think we should call it Frankenbike”. Everyone agreed as we all laughed that we would call it Frankenbike. I really didn’t care how ugly it was I soon kicked back the stand jumped on the banana seat and took off down the street with my friends. I eventually learned to do some of the tricks on that bike that Jeremy could do; as well as, Jump ramps.
A month later Jeremy, Oscar, and I dug a four foot deep hole that served as a ramp in the alley behind Jeremy’s house. I was the first to attempt the jump. I rode to the edge of the alley and peddled as fast as I could make the bike go. I went deep into the dirt ramp and when came flying out I must have went six foot into the air. Being that high scared me, so I let go of frankenbike. The bike went flying and I landed on my butt hard, Jeremy laughed as I stood there rubbing my butt. However, he wasn’t laughing for long because he also attempted the jump and he was soon standing next to me rubbing his butt as well. It hurt really badly but we laughed at each other for about a half hour.
I learned a lot of important lessons that summer. And even though it was ugly, I learned to love Frankenbike likely because it was the only bike I had. Besides no one wanted to steal a bike that was that ugly, so I kept it and my new found friends all summer long and for years to come and little by little I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I learned that we can’t always fully understand why “bad things” happen around us. Sometimes we may get mad and think “why is this happening to me?” That summer I learned that with every challenge there is a chance to learn something new. I may have lost my shiny new bike, but what I gained was some great new friends as we all learned how to build a bicycle together from assorted parts and a clear vision. We also learned to work for what we wanted and that sometimes you have to be patient and find all the right pieces to put together something truly great. But above all I learned that true beauty really isn’t sparkly new chrome, sometimes you have to look a little harder to see the inner shine. I learned to look past the dull chrome, rusty scratches, and dirty sticker glue and in some ways I feel as if I am still looking for the right parts to put on that rusty’ol frame.