17 Traveling to School at the Surge Narrows

The roads on the island were only roads if you stretched your imagination.  The ground had been cleared of derby and the stumps removed but they were very narrow, rough, very muddy and not very wide, more likened to a wide trail. To cross the many streams that crisscrossed the road at various places large hand split planks had been laid on logs as under girding support.  The planks however were extremely uneven in thickness and very lose.

The first year that my little sister Karen started school I rode her on my bicycle crossbar.  This meant that I had to peddle like a mad man down the little hill and across the bridge so I could make it up the other side as far as possible before having to get off to push. Usually it was too steep to make it very far with Karen on the crossbar.  On this particular occasion we flew down the hill and hit the uneven planks at blinding speed, snapping the forks off right above the wheel. This sent both of us flying over the handlebars.  Karen hit the ground first and began howling like she was killed.  The speed sent me flying over top of her and I landed with a thud.  It appeared neither of us had broken our necks.  My fear for her quickly subsided as I realized she could not be hurt to seriously because she was making such a racket.

We carried on to school by foot after dusting ourselves off, and it was some weeks before the bike was fixed and we could ride again.

One cool thing that happened during the last few years at Surge Narrows was learning to drive a model A.  My dad picked up an old ’32 model A when I was about fourteen and after a bit of practice I learned to drive it quite proficiently.  It had a manual choke and a lever that advanced the spark.  I thought it was a cool machine.  It came with a rumble seat, which my dad promptly chopped off, and in its place put a box to make it like a pick-up to carry stuff.  Traveling to school was now a snap as we would all climb in and off we would go, getting there in a matter of minutes.  No more fear of crashing my bicycle as I flew over the bumpy bridges at warp speeds.