Sixteen.

from Velospace.

It was a Tuesday morning, I remember well. Later that day I had my regular job cleaning the clubhouse at the golf course. Leaving home a few minutes later than usual that morning, I walked quickly and crossed the highway at the light. I only had to wait for a dozen cars or so for one to pick me up on Mission Boulevard.

"How far are you going?" the driver asked, as I opened the door to get in. "Not too far," I said. "Just up to Alvarado Road." It was about five miles.

Nice lady, about my mom's age. She waited for the opportunity to pull back into traffic, shifted through the gears and settled back into her seat. "What's going on at Alvarado Road at 7:30 in the morning?"

"Oh, I've got a class. At Tennyson High."

"A class? It's summertime", she smiled, ''And the Livin' is Easy. You're supposed to be home sleeping, aren't you?"

"Yeah, well I need to learn how to type and this is the only time I can take Typing."

We talked a bit, then silence for a few minutes. I still remember the smell of the grass on the golden hills, off to the right of the highway, carried by the breeze of the open window.

"So how come you're not driving?" she says. "Doesn't every teenager want to be driving? Why are you hitchhiking?"

"Oh, I wish I was driving, but I'm only 15. I don't get to drive until I'm 16." I made no attempt to
hide my longing for the all-powerful Driver's License.

"I thought you said you're going into your senior year," she said, now a bit suspicious.

"Yeah, I am. I had kind of a complicated education so I'm younger than the other seniors." Like I needed to be reminded of the pain of being too young to drive. For two years I'd been riding with my parents, with my neighbors, my friends, and with total strangers who picked me up hitchhiking, watching all the while as my classmates passed their driver's tests, drove their family cars, went on to get their own cars.

Hitchhiking had actually become something of an issue between my parents and me. "Why don't you just ride your bike?" my father would ask, more concerned with the half-mile walk to the highway and the inconvenience of standing in the rain than worried about any inherent dangers. I never seemed to be able to get through to him how embarrassing it was to still be riding a bicycle.

California was the home of the Automobile. It was only years later that I could put it into some
kind of sociological context: the 1950's saw the birth of the suburbs in California, which our
family was clearly a part of. I had lived in Hayward briefly when I was in fourth grade. It had 14,000 people, surrounded by apricot orchards and cornfields.

I moved away, then came back for my high school years. In ninth grade the town had grown to 55,000 people. When I graduated in 1961 there were 90,000 people calling it home. "Downtown" consisted of six square blocks of woodframe buildings and a JC Penney's store. A community seen then as the American Dream, it was the classic example of suburban sprawl, mile after mile of pavement and streets. And cars.

My family had bought a home that had been one of the model homes in Fairway Park, 30721 Carroll Ave, the large address number a clear marker for how far out of any town we were. In our subdivision there were four different models of homes; the Lucky's Supermarket anchored the shopping mall a mile away, and everything--every activity outside the home--required  transportation (read automobile) to get there.

Families with teenagers discovered soon enough that it was far more convenient to provide a car--old, new, big, small, it didn't matter--for the young people to drive, than to become what we now call "Mom's taxi service." And of course in the way only teenagers can do, having a car became its own badge of cool.

The most fortunate of the kids had their own cars, cars they could "fix up" any way they wanted. Next down the line were those who had one particular family car they knew they could count on and always use, though they couldn't customize it. The unluckiest had to drive the family station wagon, and they were the butts of more than few jokes. "Driving the Woody again today, Jeffie boy?" was the taunt in the hallways for the guy who had to drive mom's road hog to school that morning.

Completely off the radar screen were those who didn't have a car to drive, who had to passenger and bum rides to get where they wanted to go, though they could often salvage at least some part of their reputation on weekends by showing up in their dad's fancy new Oldsmobile.

Then there was me. When Bill Jones turned 16 and got his car, the first of our class to do so, I was 13 years old.

For a long time it didn't register on me that there was anything unusual going on in our group, but as one friend after another hit the Big 16 and started driving, things changed. I remember the first time it hit me, one day when I was riding my bicycle to the store for a gallon of milk. I found myself taking a longer route than usual, not wanting to be seen by the group of guys who were gathered at Jimmy Harwood's house. I was embarrassed.

And I was confused. At first I thought maybe it was because my bicycle was decidedly uncool. I'd been self-conscious of that fact for as long as I could remember: it was an old bike, it had no fenders and a home-sprayed paint job, with handlebars marking it as a relic from the 1940's. More than anything else, though, it wasn't a Schwinn.

In the blurriness of the moment it finally occurred to me it didn't matter if they saw me on a bike that wasn't a Schwinn. I didn't want them to see I was riding a bicycle.

They were all walking around Jimmy's new Ford Fairlane, laughing it up at the puny six cylinder engine and giving him all sorts of crap about how smoked he was going to be the minute he went up against a V-8. "Even a Chevy's going to be able to cream you," Eric was hollering at Jimmy as I hurried away down the side street to avoid being seen. Jimmy didn't care. This was his car, and everybody there knew it with great envy. Every guy peering under the hood with him was still driving mom's car to school.

A couple of months later on a bright summer morning, the conversation with the nice lady who picked me up hitchhiking started some kind of countdown in my mind. From that day forward I knew precisely how many days until my birthday--the Magic One, the passage to adulthood and acceptance and cool. 16. Unhappily, from that day it was still 192 days, more than half a year, until December If ever I had avoided riding my bicycle, from that day it became absolute. I was about to turn 16.

The morning I turned 15-and-a-half I pestered and harangued my father to take me down to take my written test to get my Learner's Permit. "It's Sunday." he would only say. "They're closed on Sunday," looking at me like I was some kind of idiot

Naturally every chance I had to drive, no matter how menial the errand or how busy I was doing something else, I jumped to offer. "Need anything at the store?" I'd pepper my stepmom with questions, probably more than once a day on some days as the annoyed stare I'd get back from her seemed to suggest.

And the bicycle stayed in the garage, soon layered back further and further by the stuff of everyday life--the lawn mower, the trash cans, the removable back seat of the delivery van my father drove. The further back it went, the happier I became. Occasionally I'd catch a glimpse of it as I got in the car or took the trash out, quietly reassured by its burial that Bicycle Days were over and gone for me.

Along about early November my parents seemed to be getting the hint that I was ready for my own car. I had no reason to believe they would get me one, given what I knew of the family financial situation and the fact that they had not provided cars for either of my older sisters. But they did begin to take note of the fact that I hadn't ridden my bicycle for some time. On a couple of occasions they even asked me about my bicycle, and when I brushed off their questions I saw a knowing glance pass between them that I just knew was an omen of something very, very good coming my way.

Early December, riding in Jimmy Harwood's Ford, Bruce asked me from the back seat when I was going to start driving. My friends were always gentle with me in their kidding, I now realize, accepting of the brutal fact of my years. "Next week," I said, barely containing my excitement at Everything That Meant.

"Sixteenl" came the chorus of cheers from around the car. I was the last of the group to reach the goal, and I hadn't even realized how much that meant to the other guys. "Hey," Charlie said, "now you can start driving US to school. It's about time!" I just sat and glowed, I know blushing because I could feel the heat in my face.

The countdown was on. Six days. Then four. Then three, two, one. As if I wasn't already at fever pitch, the last few days my dad started saying, "Now don't go into the garage, even if we're not here."

"We've got something we're working on," my stepmom would only say.

"Oh, man!" I thought. "No more walking. No more hitchhiking. No more riding with Mommy every place I go. And no more bicycle."

I knew exactly what I was going to do with my old bicycle. Danny, the 8-year-old down the street who was always bugging me to go riding with him, could have the darned thing. He was ready to move up to a 26-inch bike, from the 24 he'd been riding. I'd take it down to him Monday afternoon, the minute I got home from school and could drive "whatever it is that's waiting for me in the garage."

"You know, we can't afford to do much for your birthday," Dad would say, "but we've gone out on a limb here because we know this is a special one for you."

"Oh, yeah," I'd say. "I understand." He was always downplaying things, but I knew what he was saying and I wanted him to know I had no grandiose expectations. I was just so excited to be driving I didn't care if it was a 1941 Ford coupe. I confess it worried me a bit that he'd get me a Hudson Hornet, a car he seemed to have an unusual affection for. Even a desperate teenager has his dignity, I guess.

Sunday night I barely slept. My dad was a Chevy Man--never owned a Ford, couldn't see the reason anyone would ever want one of those cheap things. "Made of tin," he used to say. But I knew he'd been looking at an old '53 Buick not long before, so maybe he got that for me. I didn't really want a Buick--it's an old man's car. But I could do some cool things to it. First thing I'd do is save up my money to get some chrome rims. An old Buick with chrome rims could be a pretty cool car, and the DynaFlow transmission in those things isn't bad to drive with. You don't have to shift when you're busy talking with your girlfriend. I hoped it wouldn't be a four-door.

Oh, yeah, man. No more sitting in the back seat of the station wagon while dad drives me and my date to the show, to the dance, to the football game. Now I'm thinking what it will be like to take Linda to the drive-in--just the two of us, "I'm free! And life is beautiful."

Monday morning I'm up at 6:15, waiting for everybody to get up. Finally my dad drains his second cup of coffee, goes back into his room and putters for a bit. "Hey, Dad," I say, barely managing to keep my voice from a yell, "Why don't we go into the garage?" He knew what he was doing--he loved to drag out the drama from moments like this.

"Well," he sits down at the table, pouring yet another cup of coffee. "The budget's pretty tight," he says, smiling a huge what we called shit-eating grin, "But I think you'll like what you find there."

"Is it a Chevy or is it a Buick?" I wanted to shout.

"Let's go see," he says, slowly standing up and sauntering over to the door from the kitchen to the garage.

He steps down the two steps, turns the light on, steps back to watch my expression, and smiles.

Silently.

I stare, my mouth wide open.

"I hope you like the red," he says, looking me in straight in the eye, his voice barely containing his pride.

I say nothing.

He walks over, quietly points at the writing on the bar, says softly, "And it's a Schwinn!"

1961 Schwinn Skipper, original paint S-7.
I can't believe I could find a picture of the actual bike.