Yesterday I bought my 5th bicycle, a fancy e-bike that will transport me to new adventures. Its less expensive predecessors evoke strong emotions and good memories.
At the age of three-and-three-quarters
(age accuracy is vitally important to pre-schoolers), my first taste of personal
freedom came in the form of a red tricycle, a Christmas gift from my parents. My
three older sisters, myself, and our parents lived in Bralorne, a remote
mining town located in the coastal mountains of British Columbia.
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| Dad and Mom 1954 |
Mom and Dad both worked; my mother was a waitress at the company-owned café, and my father was an underground shift boss in the gold mine. With four growing daughters, they didn’t have the money or the energy to participate in expensive events, yet remarkably, that year, my mother scrimped and saved enough money to purchase a beautiful, midnight-blue, strapless gown for the annual Christmas party. The tight bodice and full skirt were scattered with gauzy golden stars.
In the photograph, my handsome dad has his arm around my beautiful 35-year-old mom as they beam happy smiles at the camera.
While Mom and Dad were at
the Christmas party, my 9-year-old sister Judith was tasked with babysitting
me. Presumably, my two older sisters, Valdine and JoAnn, were occupied with their
own social activities or their after-school jobs. In any case, they weren’t
home that night, and Judith was in charge! Which led to one of her more interesting
escapades.
Judith was notoriously
nosy about Christmas gifts for anyone in the family. She proceeded to carefully
open the wrapping on everyone’s presents, including a large box which, to my
delight, contained the bits and pieces for a tricycle. Judith assembled the
tricycle, let me ride it around the living room, then disassembled it and
repackaged it. All of the gifts that she’d opened were carefully repackaged
before anyone returned home.
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| JoAnn, Judith, Valdine, Lynda |
“Don’t you dare tell
anyone!” She said, shaking a threatening finger in my face, “And act surprised
on Christmas morning!”
I didn’t breathe a word
about her antics, and, for a soon-to-be-four-year-old, I put on a credible
performance of surprise.
Many years later, I told
Mom the story. She thought it was hilarious that Judith had taken the trouble
to assemble and then disassemble the tricycle, forcing dear old Dad to spend an
hour on Christmas morning putting my tricycle together—for the second time.
~
In 1961, the announcement of the gold mine closing within the year meant both of my parents would soon be jobless. Part of our family moved from Bralorne to Chilliwack, a farm-based city in the Fraser Valley. Dad thought the experience of living in a city, even a small city like Chilliwack, would civilize Judith and me, give us a different perspective, and perhaps tame our tomboy manners.
My two older sisters, Valdine, aged twenty-one, and JoAnn, aged twenty, struck out on their own, moving to Vancouver where they shared an apartment, dated, and worked. By 1961, Judith was a rebellious sixteen-year-old who hated school and wanted to work or hang out with boys. I was ten years old, completely self-sufficient, and happy to spend hours quietly reading.
Chilliwack was where I
first learned to ride a proper bicycle. It was an expensive, green Raleigh, a gift
from my mother. I was delighted and puzzled. We weren’t rich. Mom was still a
waitress, now working at The Peaks Dinner in Chilliwack and Dad was the
underground shift boss at Craigmont Copper Mine in Merritt. Dad commuted every
two weeks (before the word was invented) from his job in Merritt to our family
home in Chilliwack. He’d spend a few days, then drive back to Merritt.
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| Lynda 1961 |
My elementary school in
Chilliwack was located only about a mile from our home. In the previous
thirteen years, all of my sisters and I had walked a longer distance in the
cold mountain temperatures from our house in Bradian to the main townsite of
Bralorne to attend school. My mother’s insistence that I now needed a bicycle
to get to school in Chilliwack was mystifying, but I wasn’t about to refuse her
generous gift.
I loved that shiny green
bike. I spent hours exploring roads, ponds, fields, and pathways in Chilliwack,
Rosedale, and East Chilliwack. I brought home interesting but very dead birds,
wrapping them in plastic and freezing them for later. I had grand ideas of
taxidermy. Or displays. (Mom found and tossed my frozen treasures.)
A couple of years later, Mom,
Judith, and I relocated to Merritt to be with Dad. The Chilliwack experiment of
refining my sister and me wasn’t going well. Judith had become an
uncontrollable handful, too much for Mom. And my grade seven city friends were
far more advanced than me. The girls had weekly hair appointments. The boys
wore shirts and ties. And they all like to play spin-the-bottle. I was completely
out of my depth.
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| Lynda, Stanley, Park, Vancouver, BC |
My cherished bike gathered
dust in the basement until Mom informed me, “If you aren’t going to ride your
bike. I will.”
“Noooo,” I wailed
loudly, in protest. “You can’t do that! Mothers do not ride bicycles. It
just isn’t cool.”
Whenever she saw me
walking with my high school friends, she’d yell my name and wave vigorously as
she pedaled past—on my bicycle.
I was mortified.
~
My third bicycle was a
birthday gift from my husband, Lawrie. It was my first ten-speed and another
level of freedom. We were living on Bowen Island, a hilly mountain-top that
poked out of the chilly waters of Howe Sound. Seven Hills is a stretch of steep,
winding road between Snug Cove and our home at Eaglecliff. It took me several
weeks of trying before I could master the long, torturous uphill grind, even
with a ten-speed bike. The ride down Seven Hills was gloriously fast and cool!
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| Lawrie, Stanley Park |
~
The fourth bicycle, I
purchased second-hand for $75.00 USD while living in Mexico, on the island of Isla
Mujeres, in the Caribbean Sea.
It was a frustrating experience keeping a bicycle operational with the daily onslaught of humid,
salty, tropical winds. One or two of the spokes broke daily. I
replaced them with aluminum spokes. That didn’t solve the problem; it only
slightly slowed the destruction. Brakes, handlebars, tire rims, and pedals.
Everything rusted, corroded, or shattered.
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| Lynda, Isla Mujeres Mexico |
I worked on my bike. Lawrie
worked on my bike. A local repair shop worked on my bike. Eighteen months
later, I gave it to my friend, Javier.
In the meantime, I had
circumnavigated the island. Explored and photographed several neighborhoods.
Dodged taxis, trucks, cars, motos, and golf carts. Avoided dogs, cats, crabs, baby
turtles, iguanas, and a large boa constrictor that likes to roam the island. The boa is still there. Alive and well, and looking for small prey.
The other gringas
who ride bikes on Isla are fit and tanned. They casually cycle the island,
looking cool and charming, while I am a red-faced, odorous, hot mess of sweat.
It was time to take a
break from the fun of cycling in the tropics.
~
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| My new steed! |
It costs a lot more than all of my previous bikes added together, but I am hoping the electrical motor will help propel my tired old ass along the many interesting trails in and around the Okanagan Valley.
And then I’ll need a pet trailer so that Sparky can also enjoy the adventure.
I wonder if we’ll be
able to outrun a bear on the e-bike?
Cheers Lynda
Sparky sends his woofs!
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| Sparky and my newest murder mystery series |
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