In 1966, my dad joined the California Highway Patrol. This necessitated a move for us from Eureka, as he was given a choice of two places for his initial assignment: San Jose or Los Angeles.
The Shannons—and the Kollenborns, on my mom’s side—have never been urbanites. Former residences for the families have included Cork, Ireland; Romanshorn, Switzerland; Warwick, Canada; Bella Vista, Arkansas; Brunswick, Missouri; Rupert, Idaho; Zenia, California, and the like—no London, Paris, New York, Boston, Chicago, etc. for us.
So San Jose was considered both “the lesser of two evils” and a temporary situation. And so it turned out to be, but the two years we spent there were quite eventful.
We had the best of both worlds there: We lived at the end of a cul-de-sac (Hobie Lane is no longer such, but it was then) and had the city to our left (when standing on the front porch or driveway facing the street) and the “country” on our right: extensive undeveloped land filled with oak trees and sycamores, blue-belly lizards by the score, obsidian galore, and what we called “The Honda Trails”—denuded hills on which we rode our trikes and bikes and go-carts.
The near-vertical slopes there at The Honda Trails—some of which were a good ten feet in height—were, I recognize now, the Boomer’s version of skateboarding inclines, or ramps.
The cul-de-sac we lived on is no longer on the edge of San Jose, but smack dab in the middle of it. The short loop we knew has become a boulevard lined with house after house after house. The “Honda Trails” are now lawns and barbecue pits and swimming pools. The trees have been chippified, and the blue-belly lizards have shuffled off to Buffalo—or somewhere.
It’s a wonder that there weren’t more serious accidents at the Honda Trails. To go up the slopes, we would get a whizzing start by pumping our pedals like mad and then, steadily decreasing in speed as we ascended them, barely get a purchase on the top ledge with our front tire, and by sheer force of will and adrenaline, push and pull the back tire the rest of the way up onto terra plana—or not, and fall over backwards in an end-over-end heap of clanging metal and oofing flesh. Going the other direction, dropping in altitude—which was even more thrilling and perhaps more dangerous (the two go hand in hand, probably)—we would sail off those inclines and then, after being airborne for a few seconds, bang down to earth again, somehow managing to control our bodies and vehicles without too many spectacular crashes.
How our run-of-the-mill Schwinns and Hussys stood the strain of the paces we put them through is impressive to contemplate. There were the occasional bloody noses and lips from mishaps, true, but I recall only one semi-serious accident, when a neighborhood boy lost control of his velocipede and broke his arm. We saw him gingerly holding the broken limb, crying bitterly as he was escorted home by friends, one of whom was solicitously walking his bike back for him.
My sister, though, had two scrapes of her own (pun intended) when we lived on that cul-de-sac. These occurred, not at the Honda Trails (she was too young to accompany us to that daredevil derring-do spot), but right on our street.
The first incident involved her tricycle, and the second the borrowed go-cart of our friend and neighbor across the street, Chip. Our cul-de-sac had a bit of a downward slope to it, from our house at the end. If you were to roll a Hippopotamus down the street from our house, it would cross the intersecting street and crash into the house where “The Creepy Crawler Kids” lived (called such because they had Creepy Crawler molds and goop, and sold their products to us neighborhood urchins).
Trish was on her tricycle one day—she must have been about four years old (not even in Kindergarten yet)—pedaling slowly down the street. My mother was doing dishes in the kitchen sink (where else, right?). Trish began motating too fast for comfort, and took her feet off the pedals. This was, of course, the wrong maneuver. Free of restriction, the pedals began revolving wonderfully fast; thus, the wheels naturally followed suit, and soon Trish was flying down the street, out of control, gritting her teeth, hair flying, and screeching at the top of her lungs.
My mother saw and/or heard this occurring from the window, and flew out the door and down the street in hot pursuit. She was trim and athletic and very protective of her children, especially her youngest, her only daughter. Trish had just reached the end of our street, directly across from the Creepy Crawler factory—another foot or two would have sent her off the curb and onto the asphalt, head-first (this was in the days before helmets for such vehicles had become prevalent)—when mom caught up to her, arrested the flight of the runaway trike, and made the save in the nick of time.
The other brush with road rash Trish had was even more dramatic. Again, mom was washing dishes at the sink (is that all she ever did?). I had borrowed Chip’s go-cart, and was taking serial trips down our sloped driveway. I don’t recall now who was in the passenger seat, but Trish was standing up in the back, holding on to the curved metal seat backs. I told her to hang on, but I guess she wasn’t paying attention. As we hit the bottom of our driveway, I made a sharp 90 degree turn to the left (eschewing a smooth and gradual turn for the sake of the thrill provided by a more abrupt maneuver).
Trish lost her balance on the turn and, as I straightened out on the raceway (street), I heard a shriek and looked behind my shoulder. She was bouncing along the street but still keeping up with us. This was because as she tipped sideways off the go-cart and onto the tarmac, her hair got caught in the left rear wheel. I slammed on the brakes and came to a rather jolting stop at the precise instant our mom, again witnessing imminent disaster from the kitchen window, came flying down the street toward us.
Aside from a few scrapes and contusions, Trish suffered no lasting damage, physical or emotional (as far as I can tell, anyway). I can’t say that I received complete absolution for my role in the affair, in spite of my world-beating braking record.
- Part 2 of this 2-part extravaganza can be found here.