I got a Ross with spokes, instead of BMX

[arewethereyet]

I had a department store ten speed.  Hand breaks on the handlebars and a gear shift between them, a knockoff of the classic Schwinn.  In the summer of 1973, I would leave the house on it around 10 AM and ride the 2 miles to town.  I would roam around, play pinball at Jack's, flirt with mischief, then line up with the other paper boys to roll and throw my route.  84 papers on the good side of town.  I was lucky to have that.

One day, riding home in the evening, I pedaled to top speed just for fun.  Flying down Patmos Road, I came to my turn.  I reached for the break.  As I squeezed, the break came loose from the handlebar.  It fell and lodged in the metal spokes, the cable quickly wrapping around the forks.  The bike instantly stopped, or least the front half did.  I flew over the handlebars, or at least my top half did.  My legs hit the handlebars.  The gear shift skewered my nuts.  My right shoulder hit the pavement.  I slid on it a ways then rolled over.  The back half of the bike landed on my nuts.

I crawled to the ditch and began breathing again.  I sat in disbelief.  What just happened and how?  How am going to get the bike home?  How am I going to walk the last 50 yards with a grated shoulder and skewered nuts?  Bill, the neighbor kid, came out and helped me.  He was my age.  We had a difficult relationship.  He could be a real prick, start picking at me, and we'd fight.  That day, he was nice, my friend.  It was the bike that beat the shit out of me.

Speeking of flying over the handlebars. That same bike in my op. Once I built a make shift ramp on the sidewalk, just a concrete block, and plywood. I never did figure out how to jump anything and land on my back wheel. So one day, I build that ramp, back myself up to gain momentum, peddled as fast as I could, hit the ramp. I have never had any uper body strength. So of course the front wheel hits the sidewalk first. But it was at such an angle I went forward over the handlebars. Landed hands first, broke my left middle finger. 

After my mom took me to the hospital, they put the old plaster cast on my hand and wrist and arm. I had a huge metal stint sticking out of my cast keeping my middle finger streight. I was not allowed to raise that hand in class, because the middle finger stuck out. Some assholes however, reported my mom to CPS shortly after I came home.

---

I learned to ride a bike on a small bike that belonged to the grandchild of a neighbor.  Both tires were flat and not in a way that they could be fixed, so I rode on the metal rims until I got that monstrous bike that would still be too big for me today.

Mom used to give me a box of S&H Green Stamps and the books to stick them in when she needed me to be entertained for a while.

S&H Green Stamps? Correct me if I am wrong, but is that like Benson & Hedges stamps? My mom collected Benson & Hedges cigarrette stamps to get free stuff. She also handed those to me to keep me busy. Is that what you are talking about too?

I'm not familiar with the Benson and Hedges program.  Mom and dad collected the Green Stamps at the gas station and the grocery store.  They had little machines to dispense them.  IIRC, there were two denominations so two sizes of stamps.  One for every $10.00 spent and one smaller stamp for every $1.00 spent that didn't add up to ten.  The little books had pages with squares marked to take one size or the other.  You filled the books and purchased things with them out of a catalog.