My First Set of Wheels

I wanted a bicycle and my dad said I would have to work to earn the money to buy it. So he bought me an 18" lawnmower from Sears and said I would have to find some yards to mow. I never did figure out why he bought me the lawnmower rather than just buying me the bicycle. I guess he wanted me to learn that if you wanted something you had to work for it. I used to mow yards for $3.00 (at the most) and some of them I mowed for $2.00 As I remember they were big yards. I drove by them later when I was older and they were very small yards!

I had a bike picked out at our local Western Auto store in Oak Grove. It was a Western Flyer with white-wall tires, a mud flap on the back fender and tassles hanging off the handlebars. It was fire engine red. The bike cost $18.00 so I had to mow a lot of yards to save up the money. Gasoline cost me 18 cents a gallon and I could mow most of the summer on 2 gallons of gas. Anyway I thought the gas was expensive.

I finally saved enough to get the bike and now the world was mine. My parents would let me ride the bike most anywhere in town that I wanted to go. There was only one paved road in town and that was a state highway and I wasn't allowed to ride on this road. I could ride anywhere else that I wanted to.

One time me and my friends decided we would "ride the highway" to Sni Mills, 6 miles south of Oak Grove. Of course we hoped our parents wouldn't find out but of course they did. Before we went on our bicycle trip I "borrowed" a plug of tobacco from my grandpa. It was a brand called Tinsley's Thick. It was awful but we thought we were "tough" and could handle it. None of us had ever chewed before.

What we didn't know was that you weren't supposed to swallow the juice from the tobacco. We were all chewing and swallowing and after about a mile into the trip we all got sick. One guy was throwing up but I never did. I just got very sick and had to walk my bike back home. My mother was waiting on the back porch when I got home and wanted to know why I was looking so green and grey and I told her. She asked where I had been and I told her. I was in trouble again.

I got busted and my bicycle riding was suspended for two weeks. I got in trouble for riding on the highway AND for "borrowing" the chewing tobacco from my grandpa.

I've never tried chewing tobacco again!