Me and My Schwinn

 What red-blooded American boy doesn’t want a motorcycle on his eighteenth birthday?  I did in July of 1970 and asked my parents.  When they finished laughing, I asked for a Schwinn ten-speed.  I still have it—a forest-green Varsity with chrome fenders—all these years later.

I’ve always loved riding a bike.  I’d set out from home and end up miles away in some other part of the city or a suburb.  There was no greater fun than tackling one of those massive overpasses that spanned a railroad yard, expressway or the Chicago River; the way up might have been hard, but look out below.  I never bothered to think what might happen if I needed to stop suddenly.  Oh, to be young again.

Two summers before the Schwinn, I convinced a friend to go with me on our bikes to Brookfield Zoo, ten miles from home, half of it on streets more familiar to trucks than bicycles; somehow, we survived.  With the Schwinn, I pedaled off to a date on the Northwest Side and commuted a few times to school (DePaul) in Lincoln Park.  The bike got stored away after the wedding but found the light of day after Clare learned to ride her bike.  Only Dad ended up a better peddler than his daughter.  The old man likes to do fifty miles or so on his birthday.

I once worked a summer camp where we took a tour of the Schwinn factory on the West Side; it was dark, noisy and smelled of fresh paint.  That plant helped make Schwinn king of the biking world, until cheap imports came along and turned the company into little more than a nameplate.  When the Schwinn family sold their interest in the company in the 1990s, some employees bought a satellite plant where they used to make the “Cadillac” Schwinn, viz. the Paramount, which now goes for $1000 and up—way up—on eBay. 

The plant, located in Waterford WI, still makes bikes.  If only I had the arm and the leg it costs to buy one, I might finally retire my trusty Varsity.  Then again, why would I ever do something so dumb?