Was This How the Wright Brothers Started?

Some people spend the end of their lives sorting all the stuff they collected while experiencing life. Others like to wait until the end and then tell their family that can sort it all after they are gone.

While helping Nancy go through the boxes her mother left for her to go through we found the above picture. There was no name on the back, but that is not all that is missing. Take a minute and examine the bike. Note that there are no tires, no tubes, no chain, (and we can assume, no coaster brake) and no seat.

This young man apparently wanted a bike very badly. I know the feeling. Over 50 years ago, while growing up the the little town of Lyons, 25 miles East of Salem, Oregon, I wanted a bike too. My best friend and I decided to build one. No pictures were taken of our creation but it looked very much like the one above.

The parts came from my two older brothers. They had left them behind when they left home. We had the basics, just like the picture. There was a frame and handle bars. The bolt that connected the handle bars to the front fork was missing, so we used a stick. The axles were missing too, so a couple of more sticks were put to use. Living in a sawmill town had it advantages! Of course there was no chain and no sprocket for the rear wheel. It was truly a "coaster".

On the outskirts of Lyons there was a mile long grade on the state highway that came into town from the South. We decided that it would be the perfect hill for testing the bike. Yes, there was traffic but just an occasional log truck. Maybe every 15-20 minutes. that would give plenty of time to reach the bottom of the hill.

Safety was a concern and we decided to borrow a football helmet. The neighbor girl heard us talking. She was aways hanging around and apparently had more common sense that we did. She went a told my parents. They took one look at our "bike", told us not to leave the yard and jumped in the car.

I don't know where they found it, but they were back in less than an hour with a brand new bike, balloon tires and all. Soon I was racing around town on that bike. My parents got their money's worth. I would ride it until the middle of my high school years.

Just Rambling

It's Friday morning and I'm sitting in my favorite coffee shop and enjoying my first cup of coffee of the day. It's time to come up with a blog entry. Because I call this "Tom's Rambling" I rarely plan ahead. Here is what I wrote this morning. so far I haven't taken my laptop to the coffee shop to write directly in the blog.

This week I read a note on one of my military sites that the remains of more of our Vietnam War missing have been found, identified and returned home. As a veterans and a member of the American Legion, I'm proud that we're still searching, still recovering and still honoring our "Missing In Action". Hopefully a lot more of their families will experience closure as the Department of Defense continues to search the battle fields.

This week I got word that one of the young men, a World War II veteran, from my youth had passed away. Leland had been a role model growing up in a small town in the foothill of the Cascade mountains in Western Oregon.

I continue to be amazed at the ability of Facebook to pull people together. I'm now friends with several of my high school classmates and some of my shipmates from my Navy days. There are even a handful of childhood friends from Lyons, that small down in the foothills. My hometown even has a fan page.

Well those are my random thoughts for today. Now I can enjoy the beautiful weather while it's here. Forecast calls for showers midweek.