Now getting this for Christmas to a kid is like your first car as a late teen or early 20s. It ment freedom. Like a horse to a cowboy or a plane to a pilot it ment I could go almost anywhere and I did. I remember this bike well because I wasn't big enough to ride it . I had to grow into it. Think it was something like a 26 inch and my feet wouldn't reach the peddles but I didn't care. It was mine and it ment freedom. Just about every day and definitely on weekends I'd go crusin the neighborhoods or on long trips to the outer reaches of our town. With no gears and coaster brakes it was hell to peddle up hills but that was to be expected. I even rode it to school.
So all of this got me to wondering what was your favorite present?
7 comments:
I remember getting this stupid little robot whose chest opened up to shoot some lasers at you. It only sounded and lit some lights, but it was the coolest toy.
That and the green machine...atari....commodore 64...
Ah oh your age is showing Wayne. That would be the early eighties.
I lived with my poor grandparents for about ten years. The coolest present I ever got was a new bike when I was about nine years old.
It was a Columbia much like the one in the picture, only it had a 'tank' between the two upper bars.
I had never been on a bike before that so learned how to ride with that bike. The first thing I did was dent the tank running into a fucking fire hydrant.
Not long after that I moved back in with my family, big mistake but won't go into that, life with my poor grandparents was better than living with richer fucked up people.
Anyway, the only cool gift I ever got from them was a 30-30 the last christmas I lived at home. About six years later, after getting out of the Navy I was hard up for money and pawned it in Seattle.
I think that I got thirty bucks for it, but it kept me going until I got out of town and found a job in Kodiak.
I cleared the driveway today, and some paths, just in case we get more of the fluffy stuff.
Then I walked to Safeway and got some split pees and started a crock pot of soup.
Split pees..... Ha ha ha.
The folks didn't have much money but I never knew that. My two brothers and I got two or three presents at xmas and there were some good ones.
What stands out and not necessarily the best are two cannons. The first shot a small plastic projectile and it was nasty. Don't remember how that was cocked. Strict rules with that one. The second was a big bertha that shot a much much larger shell with a rubber tip. You cocked it using your thumb pushing a spring on the underside of the barrel. It was so hard to do. The first one was better. Dad was in the artillery ya know.
No bikes but when it was time he bought a used Schwinn. All of us rode that bike and it was around for a long time. Fun times!
My favorite present was probably my Nintendo 64. We had a NES, and had a commodore 64 at one point, but it was the first video game system that was MINE. We open our presents on Christmas eve each year, after mass, and I remember staying up until the wee hours in the morning playing Mario Kart that night. Despite the fact that I pretty much just played video games all night after opening presents, it remains one of the most vivid Christmases in my memory.
Post a Comment