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Street racer

By Rick Ryckeley
Contributing Writer

The day started like any other lazy summer day at 110 Flamingo Street.ÊI woke up Twin Brother Mark about ten o’clock by beating him with my pillow, Mom was rearranging the dust on the hardwood floors downstairs, and outside the temperature was already in the low eighties and heading for the mid-nineties.ÊThere was no wind, and the humidity was so thick you could see it in the air, making it hard even to breathe, much less play any games.ÊThat’s why my three brothers and I had decided to stay inside for the entire day.ÊMom was thrilled.

We’d already given the Sister a cherry-belly, flushed a gold fish down the toilet, played tag till Mom got mad, broke the knob off the black and white TV in the living room, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.ÊBored out of our minds, rolling around on the floor, inside a hot house cooled only by three box fans humming away quietly precariously propped in the windows; you’d think we couldn’t get into any more trouble. (You haven’t read many of my columns, have ya? Getting into trouble was easy for us.)

It was Big Brother James who came up with the idea. He’d just won the fifth game of rock-paper-scissors-dynamite when he said, “Hey guys, I got a great idea.”

Oh no, I thought, whenever he say’s that, someone always gets hurt.

“Let’s built a Go-Cart!”

I must admit when he explained what we were about to do, it did sound like a good idea and a really fun one.Ê It was simple enough; we needed to get out of the house.ÊMom had been telling us that for the last hour.ÊWe didn’t tell her what we were about to do, just that we all were going outside for a couple of hours. That made her happy. Dad pulled his rusty yellow work truck in the driveway as we all came pouring out of the house.ÊHe knew we were up to something; we all had that sneaky look, “Okay kids, now what are y’all about to do?”

James told him we were going to build a Go-Cart and asked if we could use some of his tools?Ê Dad said okay, and as we ran around back to the tool shed he yelled, “You kids break any more of my tools, I’ll bust your butts; you’ll be in the back yard pick’n out switches.”ÊAs the father of five kids, four of whom were boys; my Dad was an expert on busting butts.

James grabbed a two-by-four from the shed and cut it three times using a hand saw. Dad wouldn’t let us use his power saw ‘cause he thought we’d cut off our fingers.ÊDad was pretty smart.ÊTwo pieces of the board were for the front and back axles, and a third was for the frame.ÊI snuck in the house and grabbed The Sister’s roller skates she had just gotten for her birthday. She was nowhere around. I guessed she was hiding so she wouldn’t get another cherry-belly.

When I returned with the skates, older Brother Richard had already nailed the back axle to the frame using four nails. James had instructed him to only use ONE nail to connect the front axle so it would turn going around corners. This was his first mistake.ÊTwin brother Mark and me took apart the skates and gave them to James who nailed half of each skate to the end of each axle.

(Note to younger readers:ÊA time long ago skates were made out of metal, not plastic.ÊThey connected to the bottom of your shoes by twisting a clamp with a skate key. They had four metal wheels, two up by the toes, two back at the heel, and the whole skate could be separated in the middle.)

The only thing left was to nail an old bicycle seat to the long board in the middle.ÊWe couldn’t find an old seat so we took the one off The Sister’s bike. She wouldn’t notice it was gone; she’d spend the next couple of days looking for her skates.ÊThen it was time to try “The Bullet” out.ÊBut who would go first?ÊOne last game of rock-paper-scissors-dynamite decided that yours truly would be the lucky one.ÊRichard had tied a three-foot rope from either end of the front axles so we would have a loop to hold on to as we streaked down the hill and as a way to drag The Bullet back up to the top of Flamingo Street.

All the kids from the neighborhood were there to cheer me on: Goofy Steve, Neighbor Thomas, Tattle Tale Tina, Blabber Mouth Betsy, Bubby Hanks, the New Kid and even Preston Weston came over from The Duke of Gloucester Street Ð all there to see The Bullet and me streak down to the cul-de-sac. Goofy Steve asked, “How’re gonna stop?”ÊA very good question, one we all argued about for about an hour before James came up with the idea of a short piece of board nailed to the side of the frame so it could be pulled back to contact the street.ÊAs it scraped, it would slow The Bullet down.ÊThe brake was his second mistake.

I sat down on the seat, put my feet on the front axle, tested out the brake and asked what should I do if the brake failed?ÊJames said, “Just swerve side to side, and you’ll slow down.”ÊThis was his third mistake.Ê With a mighty push, down the hill I went ... way too fast.ÊHalfway down, I applied the brake, it worked perfectly for about twenty feet, and then it wore down and fell off. Still gaining speed, I started to swerve side to side, leaving skate marks all over the street behind me, much to the delight of everyone still at the top of the hill.ÊScared to death and heading for Old Mrs. Crabtree’s mailbox, I tried to swerve once again. That’s when the one nail in the front axle wobbled loose.

The mailbox was dented, The Bullet destroyed, my arm was broken, but man, what a ride! Kids on Flamingo Street talked about it for months.ÊMy brothers had to fix Mrs. Crabtree’s mailbox, and I got a cast. A week later The Sister was outside still looking for her skates, when James bounded into the living room and proclaimed, “I got a great idea! We’ll take the skates off The Bullet and make two skate boards!ÊIf we go too fast, we can just jump off.”

I was impressed. This time James really had a good idea.ÊHow could anyone get hurt on a skate board?