70s-child: Big Wheel:

Monday, November 07, 2011

Big Wheel:

I don't know many boys who didn't have one of these back in the day. It must've been a boy toy, because I didn't know any girls who had one. I had a friend named David, and mom brought me over to his house one day sometime around '73 so she could have coffee with David's mom. I was in the kitchen with mom and David's mom, asking mom about something, and David called out: "Hey mom! Look at this!". We went into a different room and saw David at the top of the stairs on his Big Wheel. Just as his mom started to open her mouth to say "Don't do it", David took off down the stairs on his Big Wheel. And crashed right into the front door. He never did it after that. I'm surprised he didn't crack a rib or two...

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...