My parents were big on the stealthy Christmas. The surprise factor was as important as the gift. This is a picture of me getting a Schwinn "continental" English style racer. I'm sure mom and dad had been watching me over the past few months tricking out my old bike, or at least trying. I would ride over to the Kelso Bike Shop and look at all the cool accessories they had to fix up your bike. The "continental" was always there, but was untouchable as far as I was concerned. I liked the gold one. I studied it— and figured that if I put on new handlebars and a fine English leather saddle—no one would ever know the difference. Boy was I wrong! I think my main source of income at that time was paper route money, which wasn't much. In fact, I tried to spend that money even before I paid my paper bill, but that's another story. The first thing I decided to do was buy the handlebars to get the maximum effect out the transformation. They came bare-bone out of the box so you had to buy plastic tape to wrap around them, and a plug to put in the hollow end. As I carefully wrapped each one, I could just picture how great they would look on my bike. Of course what I was really seeing in my minds-eye was the "continental", not my own bike. My friends were not impressed and neither was I, but the seat was next to come, and that would be the clincher. After all, that seat was so sleek and distinctive, not to mention expensive, it would tie everything together. What a disappointment! It still looked like the one-speed, over-weight, cruiser that it was. Lots of my friends did the same thing with their bikes. I think the only person who was happy with all this was Les at the Kelso Bike Shop. This brings me back to Christmas. My mom and dad knew what I really wanted. But a "continental" was expensive even for them, but it fit in with the Roland way of doing Christmas. I'm sure they would have liked it if my desire was something more modest, but the opportunity was there and they seized it. I appreciated it then, and even more now.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Christmas Surprise
My parents were big on the stealthy Christmas. The surprise factor was as important as the gift. This is a picture of me getting a Schwinn "continental" English style racer. I'm sure mom and dad had been watching me over the past few months tricking out my old bike, or at least trying. I would ride over to the Kelso Bike Shop and look at all the cool accessories they had to fix up your bike. The "continental" was always there, but was untouchable as far as I was concerned. I liked the gold one. I studied it— and figured that if I put on new handlebars and a fine English leather saddle—no one would ever know the difference. Boy was I wrong! I think my main source of income at that time was paper route money, which wasn't much. In fact, I tried to spend that money even before I paid my paper bill, but that's another story. The first thing I decided to do was buy the handlebars to get the maximum effect out the transformation. They came bare-bone out of the box so you had to buy plastic tape to wrap around them, and a plug to put in the hollow end. As I carefully wrapped each one, I could just picture how great they would look on my bike. Of course what I was really seeing in my minds-eye was the "continental", not my own bike. My friends were not impressed and neither was I, but the seat was next to come, and that would be the clincher. After all, that seat was so sleek and distinctive, not to mention expensive, it would tie everything together. What a disappointment! It still looked like the one-speed, over-weight, cruiser that it was. Lots of my friends did the same thing with their bikes. I think the only person who was happy with all this was Les at the Kelso Bike Shop. This brings me back to Christmas. My mom and dad knew what I really wanted. But a "continental" was expensive even for them, but it fit in with the Roland way of doing Christmas. I'm sure they would have liked it if my desire was something more modest, but the opportunity was there and they seized it. I appreciated it then, and even more now.
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