If I remember correctly, my first bicycle was my brother Glenn’s hand me down bicycle. First I rode the bicycle with training wheels on it in front of our duplex apartment on D Street in Barling, AR. After wobbling trying to ride the bike along with falling off the bike several times, I finally got the hang of riding it. It was then pretty much smooth sailing.
Not long after I got the hang of bike riding, mom and dad took us to the hardware store for me to pickup a new, bigger bike when I was about six years old. Wish I could remember the color of the bike.
Not long after getting the bigger bike, we lived with our grandparents for a while while waiting to join dad in Giessen, Germany. The Marshall Housing area were we lived there was a great place to ride our bikes! Flat areas and hilly areas. Those were the days when we spent alot of time outside, which allowed us to ride bikes often.
When not in use our bikes were stored in our storage room in the basement of our building. I had to get my bike up a half of flight of stairs when taking it out and then the easier one half a flight stairs to put the bike back in the storage room.
As many of the kids did, I learned how to ride for a short time without holding on to the handlebars. And probably at least tried to pop a wheelie while riding.
My next bike was one with the tall handlebars and banana seat. I don’t remember the color of that bike either but think the seat was white. I was about nine or ten years one when I got that bike. Remember riding it in the neighborhood we lived in Opelousas at that time. That bike took me living in three more places – Hanau and Worms, Germany and Ocean Springs, MS before I got my next bike.
The next bicycle was a blue, ten speed bicycle. I rode it around Pritchard Place, the housing area we lived in at Fort Knox, KY. I saved my money to buy it because I wanted to ride it with my boyfriend on his bike. Never having different speeds before, he had to teach me how to use it. Seems I had that bike for about twenty years until it was stolen. I hadn’t ridden in much in later years.
My last bike was red ten speed Schwinn I purchased to ride with my husband, Larry.