Do kids ride bikes anymore? I see scores of school kids walking through Burien coming from Highline High but rarely any on a bike.  Do they have them and only ride after school?

         I got my first bike when I was ten. My 12-year brother did not own one but on my 10th birthday, a Saturday, he pushed me out of our bed and told me to get dressed and that he had a surprise.

   I scrambled up, followed him down to the kitchen where mom gave us each a bowl of oatmeal porridge and a hunk of home made bread with oleo margarine on it.  

      I then followed him out the door where we set out walking, barefooted, up to a shopping center on Killingsworth st. On the corner, we went into a bike shop. Oh how glorious bike shops smell. I don't know why. Maybe the rubber tires.

He talked with a man and pretty soon Russ handed him 10 dollars and we left. I learned our Dad had a ten dollar bill in his wallet and my brother just "borrowed" it for a good cause. To buy me a bike!

   It  was beautiful. Slightly smaller than most bikes. It had a brass bandage on the frame that hid a broken steel frame. They should have welded it instead so it broke again and it had to be repaired crudely. It could not carry two kids very far. It soon broke again.

   Russ and I each had paper routes. He carried the Oregonian in the morning and I carried the Oregon Journal in the afternoon. We took our earnings and bought a new Schwinn World, the best bike made. It served us well with both of us keeping it in good repair until he discovered girls were not just soft boys and bought a Ford coupe.

   We drove it to Tijuana, Grand Coulee Dam, Spokane and Reno. We never had anything go bad except some flat tires.

He later joined the Navy and gave it to me. Now, that is brotherly love.