Six short memories from across the years
Mon, August 22, 2022 1.) As a child during the 1940s I lived in a house in England with no electricity and no water piped into the house. Water was brought in by bucket from a communal well outside. Lighting was by oil lamp and candles. My mother cooked with a coal fired range and baked wonderful pies and cakes. She did so without a thermometer on the oven.
She ironed with a flat iron also heated on the stovetop. She would spit on the iron to test the temperature, the spit would boil and run off immediately if it was hot enough. She had a pair of flat irons, one would be heating while she ironed with the other for a minute or so before it cooled.
2. It was early 1946 in England; WWII had been over less than a year. I was ten years old. King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth was coming through our town on his way somewhere else. In the days leading up to this event, we made paper flags at school
Whether real flags were not available, or the school was too cheap to buy us flags, I don’t know. But we each drew and colored a British flag on both sides of a piece of paper and then glued it to a stick.
The day finally came, and we all lined up at the roadside. We waited, and we waited, freezing our little asses off, for at least an hour. Finally, here came the motorcade, passing through at about 45 mph. We all started cheering and waiving our little paper flags.
Someone shouted, “There he is” and pointed. I think I saw King George VI that day, I can’t be certain, but I think I did.
3.) As an eighteen-year-old in 1954, walking home in the early hours of a Sunday morning, after a Saturday night out, when an older drunk man, probably in his forties, tried to pick a fight with me. He took a swing at me but missed and fell over. I carried on walking home but heard a tremendous crash as he had fallen backward through the plate glass window of a television shop. The noise was deafening as the sound amplified through the empty streets. The last I saw of the drunk, he was lying on his back amongst the TV sets, with his legs in the air.
I took off running, and was chased by two American Military Police, in a Jeep. They pulled alongside me, and when they saw I was not an American Serviceman, they stopped and gave up the chase. I made it home without further incident. Later the local newspaper told the story of a broken store window mystery, and that nothing was stolen. There was no mention of the drunk guy. I guess he was not seriously hurt and had left the scene.
There was a large American Air Force Base, near where I lived. The Military Police would patrol the streets but had no jurisdiction over civilians. We called them "Snow Drops" because they wore white helmets, reminding us of a British wild flower that has white bell shaped petals and is called a Snow Drop.
4.) In 1968 (Age 32.) I saw Jimi Hendrix play in Nottingham, England, At the time he was still relatively unknown in America. The show was in a small venue and was the loudest concert I have ever been to. He had Marshall speakers stacked floor to ceiling. I stood at the back of the room and the sound was actually pushing my chest in. I don’t believe it was by chance his band was called “The Jimi Hendrix Experience.”
5.) In the mid 1980s the owner of a bike store in Denver asked me if I would make an exception for a very special customer and personally measure him for a custom frame. The customer was the manager of the Denver Broncos football team. (I don’t recall his name.) The team was coming to San Diego to play the Chargers and after the game he would drive up to see me.
The outcome was, the Chargers beat the Broncos, and the team and the manager took an early flight home. (Obviously, sore losers.) I never did get to measure him or build him a frame. Had I done so I would probably remember his name.
6.) In the late 1980s I was approached by Fila, the sports clothing company. They were interested in a line of bicycles with the Fila name on them. Two people from the company came to my shop to look at my operation, and we talked about my building these frames. They must have dropped the idea, I never heard back, and I don't recall anyone else making a Fila bike.
Reader Comments (6)
Always enjoy your posts Dave. The memory of no electricity or water in the house remainded me of my Dad. He grew up on a farm in the US South, born in 1930, just at the start of the Depression. There was no electricity, running water or indoor plumbing. They farmed with mules, no motorized equipment. My Dad rode one of the mules to school and to church on Sunday. He said he never ate sliced white bread until he went into the Navy when he was 18. They ate home made corn bread. They had their own grown corn ground at the local mill. There was so little cash money they never bought groceries, they ate just what they could grow or raise on their farm. But he said he never really thought of himself as poor, it was just what it was. He passed away this past year at the age of 91. I have memories of the house/farm he grew up in as a very young child. Incredible changes in the world in one lifetime.
For #5, it was almost certainly Pat Bowlen, owner of the Broncos.He was an avid skier and cyclist.
Dave, I have always been amazed at how uneven modernization was.
My mon was born in 1928 in a house that was rented out in the middle of Illinois corn fields. It had gas lights, water tanks in the attic, and indoor plumbing.
When she was 10 they moved to another farm house in the same area with none of those amenities.
Then in '40 they moved again. This farm house had electricity, hot and cold running water and a modern (for the day) kitchen.
It was only in the late 30's that my grandfather was able to quit using horses to farm altogether.
I would love to have seen Jimi Hendrix.
The bike & ski shop I worked at during the 1980s started carrying Fila towards the end of my time there. Their sports clothing was quite nice, but significantly more expensive than anything else, and we carried several quality brands, including Descent and Castelli. I got to know most of the sales reps, even though I was not the clothing buyer and, as I recall, the Fila rep was the most elitist and stuck-up of any rep I met in my 16 years in the business. Most of the other reps were great people to work with and usually a lot of fun. Since we were a strong shop that was far from any major cities, reps usually stayed overnight in town and often we would work in rides, evening skiing, or just some time at a local tavern.
Hi Dave, I remember visiting your workshop in Worcester to have a road frame built, a copy of the one you built for Paul Carbutt RIP. It was gunmetal grey with yellow panels and chrome front forks. It was magnificent, I can still ‘smell’ it as daft as it sounds from when I picked it up. Good to hear your keeping well in the US.