X is for X-bike

This is a bit of a stretch but I have a very vague memory of that being the “brand” of this old BMX bike I rode only at my grandparents’ house. My grandpa was a notorious trash picker – i.e. he perused other peoples’ street trash piles for usable things. No shame in that, to be honest. I’m not too good to find value in someone’s discarded stuff. We own two skimmer poles for the pool that came from trash piles.

Anyway, my grandpa fixed up bikes all the time; he would build them from various parts and get them in working order. Well, he made me this little BMX style bike that I loved even when I was maybe a little too big for it. In the 80s and 90s, BMX was the cool thing and I felt like a badass when I rode it. It didn’t look special: just a silver frame and black handlebars, a small seat, but it had those two steel foot poles near the pedals so you could attempt to do tricks. I was never any good at them but I felt so cool.

These boys lived down the road from my grandparents and this bike got me in with them as friends. We’d ride all over that neighborhood, down to the country club where there was a big hill leading up to the pool. We were not members at the club but there was a back entrance and we’d walk the bikes up to the pool fence and ride down that hill on a narrow gravel path that led into a cul-de-sac. I can’t tell you how many times we walked up, flew down, walked up, etc. It was the best fun!

(This letter gave me trouble but it was also fun because I hadn’t thought about that memory in a really long time!)