ANNE E.'S JOURNAL - 010308 - Christmas 1973!
	"Anne E. and the Minibike Christmas 1973 ! " As I have told you in previous emails, when I was young, I was obsessed with anything with a motor that you could drive. It was my first addiction you might say. I would watch my brother as he took off on his Honda 70, dreaming of the chance to ride it. I would watch my cousins ride their motorcycles, stand in their garage and just stare at chrome, metal and wheels. I actually carried a red helmet with me wherever I went for one span in my life. I think it began when I was only three and I know I carried it for years. The reason was that I a., loved football and b., because there was a kid up the street who owned a motorcycle and I thought that one day he might give me a ride on it and I wanted to be prepared. Sure enough one day, Tom, stopped in front of our house in Avon Lake and offered to give me a ride. I think my mom has a photo of it. I loved it. Another incident pointing to my obsession occurred one day as I was watching the garbage truck going down the street. I was wishing that I too could stand on the back of the garbage truck and whistle down the street. I think my friend Jeff asked if we could. Believe it or not the man on the back said we could go for a ride on the back of the garbage truck I went crazy. I ran home to tell my mom that my golden day had come. I was going to ride on the back of the garbage truck. Well, my dream was sucked out of existence with this, my mother’s reply, “I’m not going to let you ride down the street on the back of a garbage truck with a man I don’t know who has a gold tooth. No! ” Oh, I couldn’t believe it How could she? But she did and I never rode on the back of the truck. Years later as I sat watching the Royal Tenenbaums http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265666/ I almost started crying when I saw Royal and his grandsons riding on the back of a garbage truck....That wise wise man. Anyway this is one in a string of classic parent blocks. Here’s another.... Remember when there was no Home Depot or Lowes? There was JCPenny and there was Sears. Well I used to go there with my parents. I remember well arriving at my favorite section of the store. It was a sea of red, blue, yellow and green metal. It was the tractor section. It was here that I would bid my parents farewell and let them do whatever they were doing while a spent the good part of an hour sitting on tractors. I would get up on the seat and check out the various features of each riding mower. Then I would check out the price tag and begin calculating how many lawns I would have to mow, gutters clean and sidewalks shovel before I could buy one of my own. My business would flourish. I could buy the tractor and in no time be out of the red and into the black. I explained my plan to parents over and over again. How could they not see the fortunes that were before me if I could cut my hours of labor in half? Anyone could see it. But in the classic style of “you’ll shoot your eye out”, my mother simply said, “You’re not getting a riding mower. If that thing rolls over just once it will kill you.” Once again death or the fear of death, was used to stop me. I would either be abducted by the garbage man with the gold tooth or squished to death by a John Deere riding mower. My dad remained relatively quiet on the subject. I think he just thought I would never earn the money for it. But my mom knew better. So, I guess when you looked at the skinny little fidget that was me from birth until the summer of my 9th grade year (I grew 3 that summer), you could account for my muscled arms with the fact that I continued to push a mower and hand shovel driveways. So on went my life watching as countless others motored passed me on one form or another. The closest I could get was the motor on my bike which was really just a playing card and a clothespin clicking against the spokes of my back wheel. Anyway, I continued to ask for a vehicle of some sort. Something with a motor. I begged for a Honda 50. My cousin Billy had one and he was just a year older than me. I never realized that the reason that my cousins had so many gifts at Christmas, a swimming pool, went to Aspen and Vale on vacations, was because they could easily afford it. I figured my parents should be able to come up with the money somehow. I mean we lived in the same city as my cousins for heaven’s sake, how different could we be? BF Goodrich was huge and my dad worked there. Anyway, my parents had to listen to me try to fit in my request for a motorcycle at any opportunity. I remember once sitting in our kitchen and watching my mom boil about two dozen eggs. It must have been around Labor Day or the 4th of July or some holiday where my mom was making Deviled Eggs. Anyway she had a ton of eggs boiling. I asked her if she thought I could eat all of the eggs. She said “no”. I said, “if I do, can I get a Honda 50?”. She said, “No, I’m not betting you, because then you’ll eat them all”. This was the type of exchange that my mother had to endure for at least two years. Meanwhile my brother moved from his Honda 70 to a Kawasaki 125 and my cousin Billy graduated to a Suzuki 80. Apparently nothing could roll over and kill them. My cousin Billy had his dad to afford things and my brother had himself and my parents' permission. It seemed everyone was driving something except me. Finally one day I had had it. I could take more. I was getting out of this small town with small minds and limits. I began constructing a plan. I was going to run away. I would take the family car, travel the road, work odd jobs to pay for gas and food and enjoy the freedom. I just couldn’t take it any more and was serious about my plan. I began moving my clothes into the attic that was off my bedroom. These would be the clothes I took with me. Along with packing my bags, I wrote a note to my parents. It explained that in spite of my pleading I had not yet been given a Honda 50, permission to buy a Honda 50 or a tractor so I was forced to leave. I tried for a long time to distract myself with other things; the playing card motor, the occasional ride on my brother’s 125 to go with him to check his traps in the morning (He only did this I think because he was afraid to go by himself in the dark of the morning), the bicycles I built, baseball games, play rockets but nothing would suffice. I could not listen to my cousin Billy say “no” one more time when I shyly asked him if I could take a spin on his Honda 50. I’d reached the end of my rope. So the letter was simple and to the point. I couldn’t have a motorcycle. I was unhappy. I was leaving. Then one day my mother called me upstairs to my room. She asked me why so many of my clothes were in the attic. I was pretty quick and explained to her that I had run out of room in my dresser and thought I’d store some of the bulk in the attic. She just looked at me and explained that she had found my note. Then came another one of her guilt zingers....She simple said, “Anne, if you need to go away because you’re unhappy, then I will be very sad. But if you have to go, then just tell me where it is you’d like to go and I will take you there....(here it comes)....I’d rather do that then find you lying dead in a ditch by the side of the road”. Of course she said this with all the direct fervor she always did. It was plain. It was simple. It involved death. What else? I totally balked. I said, “Well, no I don’t have to go”. That was it. That’s all I remember. That day, I let it go. I don’t think I brought up the motorcycle thing again. It was over. I went on pushing a mower, lifting a shovel and peddling my bicycle. My third grade year of school was in full swing. I loved school, hated math, loved music, gym and lunch. It was Christmas time. I was busy with school, my snow shoveling business, deciding what to make for Sister Justin for a Christmas present and looking through the JCPenny catalogue to help me with my Christmas list. I would sit in my dad’s chair (the one with the tobacco cabinet with his pipes that I would, on several occasions, try out) flipping through the pages of the 3 inch thick catalogue, dog earring pages and circling the various items I wanted. I always included one of the grown up worker outfits in the back of the catalogue. I was sure that eventually I would get the police uniform because I had asked for it every year I could remember. I never got it. Maybe because the uniforms were in the back of the catalogue and they were last on the list so my mom and dad figured I really didn’t want it that much. Anyway I love those uniforms My parents had buckled on the shoulder pads and Browns jersey for my birthday once so I never got too upset. Anyway it was another Christmas. I always have loved Christmas. I loved visiting my family, I love getting and giving gifts. It was a riot. My mom and dad always made it special and with 3 kids and eventually 4, we had a blast. Anyway I went about the usual Christmas business. That Christmas Eve included our regular trip to both grandparents houses, always culminating at my Grandma Tomanek’s (She’s Elizabeth in the song Old Town Road). The place was always crawling with kids as my mom was one of 7 children who all visited with their families each Christmas Eve. We ate, we opened presents, and my favorite, sang carols. We’d go home late, get dressed for bed and put out cookies for Santa. My mom would then read us “The Night Before Christmas”. We’d kiss my dad and mom goodnight and head up the stairs. If this sounds a bit Norman Rockwell to you, your right, it was. The night was always mostly sleepless for me. By the time I went to bed, it was so close to dawn that I could not stop calculating how much closer that dawn was with ever quarter hour that passed. I’m sure I slept some but it wasn’t much. Anyway, there is a photo of me walking into our family room on that Christmas morning. I have on a pink nightgown which no doubt my mom had talked me into, explaining that it was Christmas morning and "wouldn’t it be nice to dress up a little?" It’s right up there with her “it would be nice just to have a little padded bra to give you a little shape under your big sweater” for the football game speech. I never fell for this one. I refuse still to wear a padded bra. Anyway, I have a pink nightgown on in the photograph. I know in retrospect that my mom and dad figured I would see one gift right away....I did not. Instead I crawled under the tree and began passing out the gifts...”Robbie, Amy, Amy, Sarah, Sarah Sarah, Robbie, Amy, Sarah, Sarah” Holy shi— I thought there’s nothing for me yet. I was beginning to panic. Well, I think they thought they better save me from a complete panic attack. At one point I turned and noticed a tire peaking out from a huge stocking. Don’t ask me how I missed a huge stocking but I did. Anyway, I saw this tire and thought, “Oh daddy must have gotten some new tires for the car”. Not even then did I realize what was going on. Then they pulled up the stocking completely. Sitting in front of me was a JCPenny Golden Pinto. It was a mini-bike with a white and gold seat, glossy gold paint and a 3.5 horsepower white Tecumseh engine. I’ve never been so surprised in my life. I still get teary eyed whenever I recount this story. I simply ran to my mother, buried my face hugging her and bawled. I can remember crying like this 3 times in my life. They simply had made a dream come true. Now I think about what they must have sacrificed to do such a thing. The overtime hours they must have both worked, the real fear that I might get hurt they had to overcome. It is the best gift I have ever received. I rode that mini bike until I was 21 years old. Finally, one day after one spring break I was headed back to college and my dad asked me if he could take it out of the garage and put it up for sale. I said yes. I guess it was the freedom that that mini bike gave me that made it so special. I’ve always had an itch to be out on the road roaming around having fun. That mini bike allowed me to do that. It went through 3 engines, two seats, 4 clutches, countless master chain links and about 3 fork adjustments (trees are everywhere and not as hard to hit as you think ). It changed from gold to blue with a white stripe matching my brother’s Jeep that he bought and rebuilt. It took me from one end of Avon Lake to other more times than I can count, enjoyed the screams of my girlfriends as I motored down the dirt paths behind my house with them on back, let me fly through the air and work out my troubles. It’s not so much what it is that you want that matters but the way that getting what you want fulfils your heart’s desire. That mini bike fulfilled my heart’s desire. Now whenever I hear the sound of mini bike engine or see a young kid riding down the street or in his/her yard on anything with a motor, I think I know how they feel and I think how lucky they are...how lucky I am. THE END