Year of the Stingray

Looking at an old photo of myself at age 13, I see a girl, rail-thin, but on the verge of womanhood. Her hair hangs in long pigtails and she wears a modest top with shorts as she sits posing on her brand new bike, grinning happily at the camera. The purple bike in that picture was a Schwinn Stingray. Not just any bike, this one had high handlebars and a banana seat. It was just about the hottest property of any kid my age at that time in the late 60’s when Stingray was at its pinnacle of popularity. In our family of ten, Dad worked hard just to pay the bills. Our bikes were second-hand, and I never had one all my own. My new bike, therefore, represented for me, a summer of very hard work! I’d spent a good part of my summer vacation that year peddling greeting cards, even Christmas cards, door to door. Each day I’d walk many blocks in the humid heat of our hilly town, knocking on the doors of folks with no interest in ordering boxes of cards. Some days I'd hardly get any sales at all, and always my profits were small. Toward the end of my summer, a few large, painful boils appeared on my arms, and I suppose they were evidence of the stress of my many hours walking. However, I persevered, and at last I prevailed! How proud I was to finally walk into the bicycle shop and lay down on the counter my $45 I’d worked so hard to earn. Never again did I have to borrow a family member’s bike. With my purple Stingray, I could get across town to the Weed Park pool in a quarter of the hour it normally took me to walk that distance. Through all of junior high. that Stingray was my companion when I would breeze down the long hill of Eighth Street to my school and then have to trudge that hill on foot walking my bike to get back home! Sometimes I would just take it out for fun, but mostly I used it to ride over to friends’ houses or take it downtown, parking it near stores while I shopped for 45’s, clothes or cosmetics, the new items slowly replacing my thoughts of bicycling and play as I began making money more easily babysitting or picking berries in summer. My 13th summer soon became a vague memory with only this black and white picture to show for it. I don’t recall when or if that bike finally gave out on me or whether it just got tossed. But looking again at the photo, I see not just that beautiful Stingray bike, but also a young girl who smiles not just with happiness, but with the pride of working hard for her very first time with an "eye on the prize!"