Tag Archives: dad

Postcards Of My Life #pcoml No. 12, Pedaling my ass.

Growing up, I always had a bike. Even as the “fat kid,” in retrospect, I was in amazingly good shape. I would ride for miles on beater bikes and I guess my dad decided I needed a nice one when he did a job wiring a commercial building in Ravenna that a bike shop was moving into. (It has since been a gym, grocery store, thrift shop and I believe it is a martial arts studio now. It’s in Blackhorse, near the buy here car lot.) as part of the payment for the job he got me a brand new bike. I had never had a really nice bike, let alone a brand new one, and the Huffy BMX Pro Thunder he got me was the most amazing bike to me. Bright yellow, blue tires (!!!) with proper pads in the proper places. It was this:

Many of the better off financially kids were quick to point out that it wasn’t a “proper” bmx bike like their Mongoose’s and other models, it had a coaster brake and no front brake and was too heavy for proper bmx riding. Did I mention that I was the fat kid? I had little interest in bmx, but absolutely loved the mobility and freedom my bikes afforded me. I would ride 5 miles around town or to Ravenna, or anywhere I wanted, often leaving in the morning and not returning until late in the day. No cell phone, no beeper, just told my parents where I was going, grabbed a couple of bucks for lunch and drinks and was on my way. Did you know that in the 80’s almost everywhere had a water fountain? That deputy sheriff’s would stop for a second to say hi and make sure your folks knew you were 10 miles from home and take your word that you were good on all counts? The freedom of the bicycle, and to be a free kid, was amazing. I never gave much thought to what that bike cost… In my 40’s now, I appreciate the cost of it to my father in having worked to get it… And though he’s gone some 7 years now, I hope he realized that he got his full value out of it as well as a huge return on his investment.

Postcards Of My Life #pcoml No. 10, Son of a blacksmith.

My father was a lifetime learner with many skills, a practical and intuitive engineer, he was also a competent electrician, mechanic, fabricator, as well as able to do basic carpentry. Over the course of his lifetime he wore many hats and designed many things from the small to the incredibly large. Be it a belt buckle or an overhead crane capable of lifting 100 tons, he could design and build it. The skill he enjoyed most, though, was blacksmithing.

Dad made many cool things as a blacksmith, from hand-made chains that were used in a movie to a candelabra that sat on a friend’s wedding altar, from belt buckles to broadaxes. He did his smithing to make money but it was also his therapy, hobby and fun. He would spend a couple of weeks every summer living in a tent and smithing at the Great Pennsic War, both as a crafter and a merchant. He loved beating Iron and creating with it.

As I sit in the house he and mom lived in I can almost hear the ringing of the hammer and anvil in his shop out back… Sadly, they are phantom and a memory of when the toughest guy I ever learned to love still walked the Earth.