January 15, 2008
Transportation is changing every day, but when you were a kid, there was one major mode of transport: bikes.
Back when everything was so much simpler, the only way we knew how to get around was to ride a bike.
Riding it to a friend’s house or the park to play football.
Or making the arduous trip to the local 711, and when you finally reach the destination, you empty the money out of your sock and look at that Gatorade and bag of Doritos as if they were your first crush. Countless hours are wasted by sitting outside and talking and rummaging through what’s left in your bag until its time to go home for dinner.
And you know what? The next day, we probably did the same thing all over again.
With all of those treks you've taken, you wonder how your legs haven't turned to jelly by high school. And the dried mud that's peppered up and down the frame of your bike is a visible sign of yesterday’s shortcut through the neighbor's wet backyard.
Oh, all the times I remember spent on a bike and thinking, "Are we even going the right way?" There was always a Magellan of the group who was "pretty sure" he knew where we were going.
One of the best features on our bikes were the pegs, or maybe the worst if you had someone on them. There was always those one or two kids who got dropped off at someone's house. You practically had to beg someone to ride their pegs. And after many long games of basketball, you had to be a saint to give someone a ride home on your pegs.
The only good time to have pegs was when girls came around. When the girls needed a ride, having pegs was cool again. You felt like the man with a girl on the back of your bike. It was much, much simpler then.
Although I’ll admit that a car is much easier to get around with, part of me misses those bike rides.
