By Ken Anderson — Columnist
I had intended to follow up my snowblower story with the tale of acquiring my new snowblower. I began, “The chill is still in the ends of my fingers…” and then I remembered that winter would be nearly over when this column ran so I changed my topic — to bicycles.
My first bike was a Raleigh three-speed with 26” tires. It came from a high school friend of my parents who lived up Hubbard Street from us. It was in great condition, but it was so old that it didn’t have brake cables. Rather, it had a linkage system of chrome-plated rods that went from the handlebars to the brake on each tire. Much like Kate Campbell, who could go anywhere in her father’s Galaxy 500, I could go anywhere on that bicycle.
Wheelin’ around town
My first long ride, longer than I had intended, was to ride out to my friend John Boynton’s house. He lived at 125 Hugh Cargill Road, off Lowell Road. I set off proudly on my bike, riding high, pedaling strong. For a youngster on a bike pedaling down Lowell Road through stretches of large houses situated on good-size lots, the idea that Hugh Cargill was a dirt road off Lowell made no sense. As a result, I didn’t realize that I had pedaled right past my turn. So, I pedaled on, reaching the Carlisle town line sign, which led me to the conclusion that I had missed John’s Concord house. (He was later to live in Carlisle but not yet.) I stopped, pulled out my cellphone (if only), and headed home, not to reach John’s house until another day.
On another day, I turned onto Hubbard Street from Stow Street heading for home. Hubbard Street had just been “re-paved” by the application of liquid tar to the road bed with small rocks, less than an inch across, spread over the tar. Unbeknownst to me, the front brake bars had loosened up over time. One bar fell into the front wheel spokes, which, when it reached the fork holding the front wheel, stopped the front tire completely. A body at rest stays at rest; a body riding on a bicycle that suddenly comes to rest keeps going over the handlebars and does a four-point landing on his hands and knees. Ouch.
Job transportation
As time went by, I got a paper route, but I had to buy another bike to deliver the papers, because my Raleigh would not support the basket of newspapers.
My “new” bike was a secondhand girl’s Schwinn bike with 26” balloon tires, suitable for mounting a basket large enough to hold about 75 newspapers for delivery.
Each morning about 5 a.m. I rode down to the train station to get my papers. E.I. Toombs was the owner of the business, but he had hired some older boys to oversee the morning operation. (At one point they were two brothers from Bedford named Mudge or Mudgett.) I had to prepare my papers for delivery. I folded each paper, which was already folded in the style of newspapers, in half and then in thirds. Once folded, I positioned it on a machine which, when cranked, would wrap a piece of string around the paper and tie a knot.
When I got the papers (about 70 Boston Heralds, four Boston Globes, and one Record American) loaded on my bike, I covered my route, throwing the appropriate paper onto the front porch of each house.
My route began on Middle Street and proceeded across Academy Lane onto a walkway that wound to a house in back and then back to Academy Lane. I rode west on Main Street and turned left into the Coolidge and Oak Road neighborhood. After covering the houses there, I rode down the Hall’s driveway, at the then-end of Oak Road, down a path to the Shaws’ house on Main Street. As I rode back toward town, I turned onto Wood Street and went up Nashoba Road, where I delivered papers to houses on that street as well as Hosmer, Garland, Wilson, and Crescent Roads. And I finished up by coming down Elm Street.
All for about $6 a week!
Stationary days
My newest bike is a LeMond RevMaster. It is a spin bike I picked up at an equipment sale at Gold’s Gym. My trips on this bike are not as exciting as the trips described above; however, I do get a good workout and eat a healthy breakfast. After donning my workout clothes, I prepare a breakfast of raisin bran, honey, banana, 1% milk, and a cup of coffee (with cream) on a tray and head to the cellar and the bike.
Once on the bike, I set the stopwatch to measure time, tune in some music (Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, or Hank Williams III radio, for instance), eat, read the newspaper on my cellphone, and pedal. A scene hard to imagine back in my paper route days.
