Questions Answered
Parents now are far more protective of their children than when I was growing up. As young kids, my sisters and I would go to the beach, play (smoke) in the hills and canyons behind our house or head off to a friend’s house, all without thinking about ‘stranger danger.' We’d just hop on our bikes, and off we’d pedal. We always came back before it got dark and generally in one piece.
As I reminisce about Bird Rock Elementary School, a small K-6 I attended back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, it brings back fond memories of the years I spent there. At the time, our school consisted of two classrooms for each kindergarten through 6th-grade class.
Built on a gentle slope edging away from the coastline several blocks away, it had three levels. Just to the left of the main entrance and separated from the rest of the school by a wooden fence was a building for the two kindergarten classrooms, as well as an area that held a small swing-set, sandbox, and jungle-gym for the kindergartners. In a separate building nearby were the administrative and principal’s office.
The middle level consisted of two classrooms each for the 1st through 6th graders and the middle playground. I recall two sandboxes, monkey bars, another swing-set and a few portable classrooms on the south side of the playground. Across the asphalt-paved playground was a small dirt area that had another set of monkey bars and a fenced in incinerator. Daily, the janitors would burn whatever trash they had collected from the classrooms.
On the upper playground, there were two or three baseball backstops and a long wooden bike rack, painted a dark emerald green. On most school days it was loaded with a variety of sizes and styles of bicycles. At the far end of the field was a set of concrete stairs that led up to the outside world of the surrounding residential area.
At 3:05, the school bell rings and Mrs. Montiel’s third-grade class heads out the door, scattering kids in all directions on this warm spring day. Those who rode bikes to school, like me, walk the short distance up to the bike rack. Spinning the dial on my Master Lock, I unlock my bike and wrap the chain around the seat post of my little red Schwinn 2-wheeler and start the mile or so ride home.
As I peddle along on Beaumont Avenue, a typical Leave it to Beaver type neighborhood, a thought enters my curious young mind, “What would it be like to be blind and ride a bike?” No sooner had this thought entered my consciousness when I close my eyes and continue to pedal home, failing to follow the slight curve in the street.
CRASH! . . . OOF! . . . OUCH!!!
Running into the back of a parked car, my yet-to-be manhood slams hard into the handlebars, instantly answering the question of what it would be like to ride a bike when you’re blind – Painful! As well as the unasked question of why Mary and I have no children . . .