The Great Bicycle Mix-up of 1956

Dear Santa,

I have a bone to pick with you.  Back in 1956, I was called Jackie and lived on 120^th street in Biscayne Park, Florida.  It was the two bedroom one bath yellow house on the north side of the street.  I know, this was over 60 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  These days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast but the Christmas morning of 1956, I will never forget.

December 25^th fell on a Tuesday that year.  It was 55 degrees in the morning and the skies were clear.  I know it was 55 degrees inside my house because it was also 55 degrees outside.  In Florida, 55 F stands for 55 Florida degrees which means you have to subtract 20 degrees to get the equivalent in "up north feels-like" temperatures.  It's kind of like wind chill, but for Florida. We wouldn’t have heat in the house that day until my dad woke up to light the two-burner Kenmore kerosene stove.  After the stove was lit the temperature would rise about two degrees, but only if you were within ten inches of the heater.  The house had no insulation. With our typical leaky jalousie windows, the wind was only slightly impeded.  So, insulation wouldn't have mattered anyway.  What with growing up in the Florida tropics with no air conditioning and only one bathroom between two adults and two children, heat was the least of our worries.

Our Christmas tree was in the corner of the living room next to our 21” black and white Magnavox console TV.  You could tell it was a Florida Christmas tree because the star at the top was an actual star.  It wasn’t the burning kind of star from the sky, but the lacquered kind from the ocean.  It was lacquered to keep the starfish from stinking.  We also had a few sand dollars hanging from branches with ribbons.  I am taking the time to describe the house so you might remember the Great Bicycle Mix-up of 1956.

It was just a couple of weeks before Christmas that I sat on your lap in the Burdines Department Store on Flagler Street in downtown Miami.  I know, what's an eleven year old kid doing believing in Santa?  I was tall but rather skinny and I wanted to milk the Santa thing for as long as I could.  You should really be asking yourself, what's a septuagenarian doing writing Santa?  Read on and you'll find out.

Santa, your office was just to the right of the
Christmas tree in this picture

In 1956, I made myself very clear.  I wanted a new 3-speed English racer bicycle.  I say I wanted it but I should have said I needed it.  I started the seventh grade that year and had an almost two-mile commute to the junior high school in North Miami.  My old balloon tired single speed bicycle just wasn’t going to cut it. 

This is a modern replica of the historic 3-speed English racer I wanted

English racers were really cool.  They were lightweight and had three speeds just in case you encountered a hill.  I know there aren’t any hills in Miami but, as a Boy Scout, I wanted to Be Prepared.  If this isn’t reason enough, suffice it to say that all the other kids had English racers.  As a twelve-year-old, conformity is not just a rule but also a requirement to avoid ridicule and ostracization.  I didn’t know what that second word meant back then but I knew it wasn’t cool.

I know my dad thought that English racers looked flimsy and would fall apart but, I just knew you would understand.  You were Santa Claus, a gangster with more aliases than a Chicago numbers-runner.  You are Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, and my favorite, Santa Baby.  You had more B&E's to your credit than anyone in the world.  I didn’t want socks and underwear; I just wanted my English racer.  You only had to get one thing right that year.

However, did you remember my wish?  Did you get it right?  I think you can guess that a 72 year-old kid wouldn’t still be writing you if you had.  You messed up "bigly" as our current president likes to say.

I woke up that Christmas morning wearing my flannel pajamas and climbed excitedly down the ladder of the bunk bed I shared with my little brother, Ricky.  You remember Ricky; he’s the one who got excited and peed on your leg, not me.  I put on my red and black checkered flannel robe and faux leather bedroom slippers and ran the ten feet to the hallway where I could gaze upon my new English racer.  Only, I didn’t see a new English racer did I?  Do you remember me now?

Western Flyer X-53 Super Tank bicycle

What did this excited twelve-year-old see before him?  Well, it certainly wasn’t a new lightweight three-speed English racer.  It was more like 75 pounds of gleaming chrome fenders, huge chrome springs, fat white-walled balloon tires, a chrome rear carrier, a chrome center tank with electric horn, and a chrome headlamp.  All of these were components of my new single speed Western Flyer X-53 Super Tank bicycle.  The most accurate word in this title was Tank, as in Sherman-like.  My look of disappointment was clearly visible in my reflection as could be seen in the shiny chrome rear fender of my new albatross.

Ahh, the Chrome

My brother Ricky was also to be disappointed this Christmas.  He got a new bike too.  It was a balloon tired single speed bike with the standard coaster brake.  It had a maroon and white paint job and fancy handle grips with colored tassels hanging down.  At first, he was excited to be moving from a tricycle to the more grown up bicycle.  It wasn’t until he managed to fall down with the new bike and scraped the maroon paint which then revealed blue paint underneath, that he was troubled.  As kids in the fog of Christmas delirium, neither one of us had noticed the mysterious disappearance of my old blue and white balloon tired single speed bike with the standard coaster brake.  Things that make you go Hmmmm!  Looking back, perhaps you did remember him peeing on your leg.

Well, as it turned out, my new bike was virtually indestructible and, as much as I might have secretly wished for its theft from the school bike racks, nobody in their right mind would steal such a monstrosity.  I rode this bike to the junior high and the senior high.  I was too embarrassed to actually ride it all the way to the senior high at a time when most of the guys were already driving cars.  I, out of social necessity and teen-aged angst, was forced to park my over-sized chrome Western Flyer at North Miami Junior High and then walk the last long block to North Miami Senior High.

School bike rack

Pedaling my heavy single speed Super Tank X-53 Western Flyer to school did accomplish one thing that stayed with me throughout my life, large muscular calves.  While my classmates flew by me on 8^th avenue on their lightweight 3-speed English racers, I was laboriously pumping iron in the slow lane.  While getting a bit nostalgic writing this letter, I decided to see if anyone had pictures of my coveted English racer.  It would seem that those flimsy lightweight bikes didn’t fare too well through time so I only managed to find vintage photos of the original.  Somewhere I can hear my Dad saying, "I told you they wouldn't last."

Vintage Image or an English Racer circa 1956

I did however manage to find plenty of pictures of my two-wheeled childhood curse.  It seems that many of these behemoths survived the past six decades. The best example was in the form of an eBay ad where someone was selling one in mint-condition for $5,800.  The bicycle had been found in an attic in Cleveland, Ohio.  I can only guess that the kid who lived there hid it in the attic and told his parents it was stolen.  I would have done the same but, in Florida, we don’t have attics or basements.

I guess, at $5,800, I should have taken better care of my old bike.
(Click to enlarge to read detail)

     Still disappointed, your friend,

Just remember, A bicycle can't stand alone; it's just two tired.