DEADMAN'S CURVE

Bicycles and swimming; where would I be, what would have become of me without bicycles and swimming? I got to go on swimming forays with the Cub Scouts before I was old enough to join. Then there was the farm pond over the hill, the one we weren’t supposed to swim in. I learned to swim: ‘Monkey-See Monkey-do’. The same year, between 1st and 2nd grade, I got a bicycle. My brother Dave had a bike with skinny tires, not good for riding double. My dad got a good deal on a second-hand, balloon tire bike. It was too big for me but I would grow. In the meantime, I could ride on the bar and Dave could pedal us the two miles to and from school. I bragged on my new bike but nobody believed me. It was too big and my brother did all the riding. I made up a story, that I could ride it, just could’t get up on it to get started. My classmates wanted to see this so they steadied it for me to climb up on the seat. My legs were too short for a full circle on the pedals but I grabbed the handle bars and nodded my intent, down the school driveway. They gave me a shove and I was launched. I could neither pedal nor brake but I steered it straight down the drive, into the wire fence of the house across the street. I remember untangling myself from under the bike as my friends came running down the hill. I was embarrassed. Everybody knew; my big talk was all talk, I couldn’t ride the bike. Then I saw blood. A bare wire in the fence had gouged me under the jaw. By the time a teacher arrived I was a bloody mess. They bandaged me up, called the Superintendent of Schools who drove down from Hickman Mills and took me home. The next day I showed off my stitches; I still have the scar. 

I grew to fit my bike, riding it everywhere. The summer between 7th and 8th grade, a friend and I were headed to Fairyland Park to go swimming. Fairyland was an amusement park with a midway, rides and a great swimming pool, a five mile ride into Kansas City. Our route took us west across 87th street, a stretch marked by a hilly section and a steep, downhill, S-Curve famously known as Deadman’s Curve. We both knew we would race down the Deadman, nobody wants to be last to the bottom of the hill. Halfway down we were going faster than we could pedal. On the bottom half of the ’S’, water had carved out a narrow rut in the gravel between the pavement and the guard rail. With gravity accelerating and centrifugal force pulling us out toward the shoulder, the front wheel began to wobble. I tried the brakes but when the front tire dropped off the concrete into the rut, I bailed out. No broken bones but I lost a lot of skin. My legs and back were raw. The bike had some broken spokes but was still ridable and we rode on. 

When we got to the pool I showered, patted dry and got in the water. Abrasions look awful but mine didn't really bleed. The chlorine was probably good for it; it was 1952 after all and nobody seemed to notice. In the movie, “Sand Lot”, the boys take a break from their baseball game to go swimming and ogle the girls. They show off, do cannonballs, splash the girls who were sunning themselves for the benefit of high school boys. The pool scene always makes me think of Fairyland Park, teenage girls, cannonballs and an ill fated race down Deadman’s curve. 

Bicycles and swimming; they do go together. I still swim and ride. Swimming pools haven’t changed much but I have. Can’t remember my last cannonball and I keep it between the lane markers; they have another pool for playing in the water. Bicycles are a lot better now, more expensive but then you can scroll through the gears until you get the right one and speed wobbles are a thing of the past. How does that saying go; You separate men from boys by the price of their toys? I haven’t crashed in over a decade, think I’m onto something. Maybe discretion really is the greater part of valor.