My Bicycle

I was the only one of us six children to get a bicycle and that happened because I was given $25 at the time I was born by my uncle Carl. I am quite certain that the reason behind my uncle’s gift was that I was born on his birthday and was naturally given his name.

When I was at the age where I craved a bicycle I was told by my parents that I could use this money for this purpose. Which I did, buying the bicycle from the Lennarson and Johnson hardware store. It received considerable use, both in such activities as following Harris on his paper route and later when we were living on the Peterson farm as a mode of transportation to Gowrie for such things as the Saturday morning Confirmation class. That lasted during the year when I was a freshman in high school. As I grew older and my use of it diminished, my brothers tool over, but they never used it to the extent I had.

I never felt much empathy with my uncle Carl, somehow or other our personalities did not respond to each other. I think my uncle had a more congenial relationship with my cousin Eugene. Perhaps this was because Eugene had lived on the Peterson farm as a child when my uncle Serenus was participating in the running of the farm. My uncle Carl would have tended to have had a closer contact with him on a more or less daily basis during Eugene’s early years. It is true that my uncle compensated me for the work I did for him and the farm and this helped me with my educational expenses at SUI. On the other hand he never helped me with my actual school expenses as he did with Eugene.