Having a working bicycle in 1945 was very important to me and lots of my 10-year-old friends in Stonewall. But our WWII enemies, the Japs and the Germans had seen to it that bicycles, cars and such were fairly unavailable in the USA. Especially Stonewall. We had plenty of old bikes, but it was hard to find one that worked. Bicycle chains were scarce so if you couldn’t fix yours, you were out of luck. My brother and me spent many an hour figuring out how to fix those things and eventually got good at it. Flat tires? We were masters.

Then this happened. One day a wayfaring teen who had decided to ride his big 26” bike all the way from Houston to Chicago happened to end his odyssey at Jack Garrison’s gas station on Main Street. The teen said he had gone as far as he could and wanted to sell his bike for a bus ticket home. My dad bought him a ticket home. My dad gave me the bike.

I was happy (at first) with this big gift. The bike was so tall I could hardly mount the thing and it was hard to ride. It had a heavy luggage carrier, headlamp and basket which Gerald and I quickly removed, trying to lighten it up. It did, but it was still hard for me to ride. My old bike was smaller, so I tried to palm my new blue bike off on Gerald. Free. No dice. Gerald didn’t want it. He was “above” that sort of thing at 14. Dad insisted that I just needed to try harder and keep riding this behemoth. But I never could get to where I liked it and it wasn’t long before I started having bad dreams about it.

An Indian kid named Bobby Driskell lived about a block from me and he liked this bicycle so much he fairly glowed whenever he looked at it. He said he would give me $10.00 for it. Dad reluctantly said OK, and Bobby borrowed my blue bike so he could ride it out to his Grandma’s house and get the money. He said she had already given him an OK but said she had to see it first. That’s when everything started going wrong. Bad wrong.

When I say everything went wrong from this point on, I mean everything. My mom said Bobby was the “prettiest” little boy in Stonewall. He headed out toward Debs Corner where his Grandma lived. Meanwhile, a clerk had hurriedly left his work at Hudson’s Country Store in Coalgate to see about his own little 10-year-old girl. She was dreadfully ill with Polio and chocking to death at Valley View Hospital in Ada

Bobby on the blue bike met this man head on upon Buck Creek Bridge that late afternoon. My friend, RC Adams and I saw a commotion there on Main Street in Stonewall. People pointing East and soon we were peddling fast to see what was going on. I saw my blue bike impaled in the windshield of a damaged 37 Chevy first and then I saw the still body of Bobby. His little brother was still on his bike and just staring at his mangled brother’s dead body. A pool of blood was still growing from Bobby’s broken head. His eyes had even been knocked out of his head and lay nearby on the unforgiving concrete. It was a horrible and “forever” kind of scene which is still imbedded in my mind. It will never go away.

The hapless driver admitted to speeding. Also, his brakes were defective. Meanwhile, his little daughter died in an “iron lung” later that evening and a few months later this father was sent to prison. I was wishing I had never seen this big blue bike. I had never felt so bad about anything in my young life. I couldn’t have felt more horror than if I had taken a gun and killed Bobby.

I didn’t go back to the movie that night where I was supposed to sell popcorn. Instead, I went home to be with my mother. I needed some motherly words of comfort. I felt like I was responsible for my friend’s death. And there was that little girl too and her dad who I felt was also somehow victimized. To this day l remember my friend Bobby and his broken dream of owning his own blue bike. I wish had just given him the thing so he wouldn’t have had to go see his grandma.

I hope your week is good. Be sure and go to church Sunday and be careful in living this Summer. And remember, I always enjoy hearing from you.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com