CYCLES OF THE PAST

Professor C. Denson Hill (otherwise known as our Denny) sent the following to me to share with the Class of ’57. I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. I was disappointed it didn’t come with a picture of him on his new unicycle.

"From the time I was in Jr. High, and throughout my High School days, in the summer, I used to go swimming almost every day. I would ride my bicycle there. As you probably remember, there was a quite steep hill leading down to the pool in the park. My bike was an old "Western Flyer", without gears like the modern bikes. If you stepped hard on the brakes, the back wheel would lock up. Since there was usually a bit of sand or fine gravel, especially toward the bottom of the hill, you could manage to "fish-tail" your bike, as you slid to a dramatic stop right near the front of the pool. Probably already in the 7th grade I learned how to go very fast at the top of the hill, then lock up the brakes, and fish-tail-all-the-way-down the hill, without falling down, just managing to stop right in front of the girls hanging out by the pool. 

I thought I was so cool!

A bit later, on level ground in front of my house, I practiced until I learned how to ride my bike backwards: You sit on the handle bars, pedal your feet backwards, and there is really no problem, except it is hard to see just where you are going; you have to look over your shoulder. In a few weeks I got to be rather good at it. So I would make figure eights, riding backwards, on the street in front of my house. It was natural to put the two things together. I started at the bottom of the hill, going down into the park, and tried locking up my brakes and doing a little fish-tail, while sitting on the handle bars and going backwards. Of course I fell down a few times, and skinned up my elbows and knees, but that was standard at that age. Finally I got it down. So to "impress" the girls even more, I would start at a good rate of speed at the top of the hill, sitting backwards on the handle bars, and fish-tail-all-the-way-down. There were times when it got really hairy, but fortunately I had practiced, so I was always able to (barely) pull it off before totally wiping out. In those days there was never any thought of wearing a bicycle helmet (I don't think I had ever even seen a bike helmet, up to that point in my life). Sometimes I did scare myself, but I don't think I ever really thought about how serious an injury one might get by falling down such a steep hill, at speed, and landing on your head. So everything went OK. (Now, I shudder and feel goose bumps when I think about it.) Having mastered the backwards steep hill fish-tail, with all of  my weight right above the front wheel, and with the back wheel swinging back and forth, acting like a rudder, I started to think that maybe the back wheel was not so important after all. 

That was when I decided that I should get a (homemade) unicycle, and learn to ride it. Of course that had to be done on level ground. After some really badly skinned knees and elbows, I soon learned to just step off the unicycle a microsecond before falling down. That way, you were left standing on your feet, and the poor unicycle went tumbling. After 4 or 5 days of practice, I finally learned how to stay up for a long time, and was able to ride a considerable distance before getting too tired to continue. But since unicycles do not have brakes, I was never able to do anything
on the hill going down to the park, except very slowly inch my way
down.

So if you ask: "Why did you decide to learn to ride a unicycle in high school?" I would say that "The hill made me do it." 

PS: As I write this, from my office at Stony Brook University, there is a unicycle here, just behind me. I had not touched one for maybe 35 years, so I didn't know if I could still do it. But, just to check it out, I bought one, and discovered that it is just like typing or swimming: I can still do it, but of course not as skillfully as before."

Editor:
Denny remembered it was a Western Flyer bicycle. The photo I put with this is probably very similar -- early 1950s. However, his was yellow and black with streamers from the handles.

Isn't it amazing how the City Park hill brings back memories to all of us? I think Denny's experiences riding backwards down the hill is even more dangerous than the boys riding on an old car hood. But maybe Coach Gosney would have thought teaching young teenage girls how to park on that hill would be the one most likely to end in an accident of some sort!

I'd still like to hear some of the "love stories" out there. There's never enough love in the world.

And don't forget... "Good stuff happens."

Marilyn