When I was nineteen I had been married a year, moved far from home, attended college and hardly knew a soul. My husband was always on call at his job. I was a music major and spent four to six hours playing the piano every day. When I wasn't studying, I was bored and needed some exercise.
I bought an orange Schwinn bicycle with a 10-speed Derailleur gear. It cost $115, a fortune for newlyweds. During nice weather it was nothing uncommon for me to ride ten miles around town. For a town with a population of forty thousand, Aurora had a small town feel and traffic was usually light. My favorite routes took me past the Frank Lloyd Wright house and the round house with pie shaped rooms which was featured in Look magazine. One summer afternoon I was returning to the apartment, pedaling along the edge of the pavement because there was quite a bit of traffic and I didn't feel comfortable sharing the two-lane road with motorists. The condition of the shoulder deteriorated with obstacles such as chunks of pavement, broken glass and holes. I decided I'd be better off riding on the pavement. I had a rear view mirror attached to the handlebars (a $12 accessory). I could watch for approaching cars.
If you ride bikes or motorcycles you'll know right away I shouldn't have done what I did next. The pavement was a couple of inches higher than the shoulder. I should have got off my bike and walked it up on the pavement. I could have demonstrated my athletic abilities by yanking up on the handlebars and lifting the front tire onto the pavement without stopping. I didn't go that, but I did have a live-and-learn occasion.
I might mention right here that it was a nice day and I was wearing shorts and a halter top. That's what nineteen year old girls wore in 1974.
By now I bet you can guess what I did. I turned the wheel toward the pavement. The tire didn't hop up on the road. It scraped along the ragged edge. By the time I realized I'd made a mistake and the bike was off balance, a car was passing me. In the next instant I was sprawled on my back in the middle of the lane. Simultaneously, car tires squalled against the pavement as another car came to a stop a few inches from my head. Not taking time to assess whether I was injured I scrambled to my feet and dragged my Schwinn back to the edge of the road.
The driver jumped out of his car and left it abandoned in the street. I don't remember what he looked like. Nondescript, I guess. Panicked, for sure. He insisted on taking me to a hospital to be checked for injuries. I was pretty sure I wasn't hurt worse than a scrape on my bare back. No way was I getting in a car with a stranger. I could see my apartment building across a large vacant lot and started pushing my bike toward it. There was something wrong with my bike, but I couldn't figure out why the front wheel didn't want to go where I was steering it. The guy ignored his running vehicle and side-stepped along beside me. He rapidly assured me he was a married man and had two little girls. I'd be perfectly safe with him.
I scarcely looked at the man. I'm sure he was quite nice. The realization that I had missed being run over only by his quick reflexes swept over me as I imagined someone informing Ed his bride had been killed or seriously injured. Tears stream down my face as I repeatedly told the well-meaning motorist that I was fine. He finally left me struggling with the bike and returned to his car.
At the apartment building I carried the damaged bike up a flight of stairs and parked it inside our door. I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Too shook up to do anything else, I sat down to wait for Ed to get home.
He had a little chat with me about the laws of physics and why he always slowed his motorcycle down and steered straight across railroad tracks if they cross the road at an angle. I admitted I should have known better. It turned out there wasn't anything wrong with my Schwinn except for a gouge in the protective orange wrap on the handle bars. Why couldn't I steer it? The wheel was turned around almost 180 degrees. Duh.
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