Bowling for Bikes

Bowling for Bikes

          A few yards from my outstretched legs lays the stream I grew up beside. Many a childhood adventure surrounded the small babbling stream known as Rattlesnake Creek. Panning for gold and imagining what I will do with my wealth. Or fighting a, far away, adversary with my friends and saving the world from global domination.

          Taking a break from my chore for the day of cutting, splitting, and stacking wood, I sit here in my folding chair at the spot I hunt from, just yards from the bank of Rattlesnake Creek. The old folding redwood chair resides here year around and, at times like this, I will sit in the peaceful serenity of my spot and in the arms of The Keepers, and just listen and think and remember. 

          It was fall days like today, with temperatures high in the sixty’s and sunny, that Wizard and I would ride to get every bit of mileage in before the coming winter and as I recall those carefree days, I suddenly begin to chuckle to myself.

          It was the summer of 1972 and Wiz, and I were cleaning up the barn that Wiz’s parents owned. It wasn’t a barn for domestic animals or livestock. The barn had been built and used by Wizard’s Grandparents at a time before the horseless carriage became common place. The barn had been purposed for tack and leather and storage as an addition to the hardware store they owned, and Wiz and I agreed to clean it out for a wage in order to keep the gas tanks of our SL-70’s full for adventures yet to come and a burger at the local Tastee-Freez.

          Tool after tool, thing-a-majig after thing-a-majig, all kinds of tooling meant for leather crafting back in the early part of the last century, were thrown into a pile destined to become part of a landfill. But two treasures were uncovered by Wiz and I that day that caught our eyes and imaginations.

          One was a recipe, from the prohibition era, for “potato wine” (a.k.a. vodka) which is another story. The other, a very old bowling ball.

          “A bowling ball?” Wiz and I asked each other. Immediately our minds began to merge and synchronize as to devious and mischievous ways to dispose or destroy of the solid hard orb. Things like, “roll it down main street late at night” and “make a sling shot out of two trees and see how far we can shoot it.” were all rejected by the two of us for one reason or another.

          Finally, I suggested, only jokingly, “Let’s drop it off the fire tower!” Wizard looked at me with evil intent in his eyes and a grimace on his face that told me he took my suggestion seriously and was running with it.

          Before Wiz could say anything, I was trying to talk him out of it by explaining that it was about ten miles of rough trails and dirt roads to “Boone Mountain Fire Tower”. And how were we going to get it there on our bikes over that kind of terrain?

          Wizard’s response was… “Look around, we got leather and stuff to make a bag to carry it!” And so, it was. All cleaning ceased. We now had a mission, and that mission must be carried out clandestinely or we would not succeed.

          Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent on constructing a crude (the term “crude” is being optimistic and kind.) sling/backpack combination out of brittle and dried out leather.

          The mission was set for the next day. Since it was a weekday there shouldn’t be anyone around the fire tower and we would rendezvous back at the barn at the unobtrusive time of 10AM… so we wouldn’t have to get up early.

          Wiz was the first to carry the twelve-pound projectile in the Frankenstein backpack of our combined engineering, and he came to an abrupt stop less than a couple of blocks from the barn.

          “This thing sucks!” he said to me, and I began to chastise him for being a wimp. “Then you carry it!” he commanded, and I took the sling, and its precious cargo, and slung it over my shoulders and we continued on our mission.

          It wasn’t long before I figured out what Wiz was talking about. Every bump, be it big or little, made the heavily laden leather sack slam into my spinal column. We hadn’t even made it out of town yet when I pulled over.

          A discussion ensued as to just what we were going to do now. There we were, right in the middle of town with a bowling ball strapped to my back, on a side street that was near the towns police station.

          We couldn’t get caught on the street by the police since were too young to drive and on unlicensed vehicles. But we couldn’t go back to the barn and chance getting caught by Wiz’s parents and answering as to just why we were carrying a bowling ball in a leather pouch and what were we going to do with said bowling ball. But it’s a rough and bumpy, ten-mile, ride to the fire tower. Our failure to test our equipment prior to the mission may have just compromised it.

          It was agreed that we must continue with our mission, but we must get out of town as soon as possible. But how would we carry the ball the rest of the rugged journey? Wizard, sort of, took command and grabbed the leather sack and its content and hung it around his neck and took off toward the town’s limit at a, less than, hurried speed with me in pursuit ever vigil for the authorities.

          As soon as we reached the safety and seclusion of the over-grown remnants of the abandoned strip-mines that surround the town of Brockway, we stopped to rethink just how we would continue to the fire tower. I had formulated a plan.

          I explained to Wiz my idea of taking the leather pouch and removing the straps then folding it several times. The carrier of the bowling ball would then sit as far back on the seat as possible and place the folded leather between his legs and onto the gas tank to keep the ball from contacting the tank and damaging it or our more delicate personal anatomy.

          Wizard agreed and we removed the strapping from the pouch, folded it several times and since it was my idea, I’d be the test dummy.

          Everything was in place on my bike. Starting out from a stop, without losing the ball, proved to be a little tricky, but doable. Now, if I can keep my speed low enough to not let the bowling ball bounce and drop to the ground, yet fast enough that the rest of the ten-mile journey wouldn’t take until the, proverbial, cows come home, this might work.

          We made numerous stops to trade bowling ball duties over the next several hours, but we made it to the Boone Mountain Fire Tower.

          We parked our bikes near the tower and walked over to the first step and looked up. High above us loomed the hundred or so steps to the final landing where we would drop the ball.

          Each of the four legs supporting the tower had a concrete footer or pad. One of those pads would be our target for the ball.

          Step by step we ascended the tower taking turns carrying the bowling ball like it was a convict walking the final steps.

          Standing on the top landing, the honor of dropping the ball was determined by a coin toss and I had won the toss.

          Leaning out over the rail of the landing as far as I could, I lined up the ball with the concrete pad as best I could. “Wait! Don’t drop it yet.” Wiz said to me, and he produced a coin and lined it up with the bowling ball to test my accuracy. When he released the coin, it fell right onto the footer. We knew my aim was true.

          “Do it!” he said with mischievous glee, and I released the ball.

          I no sooner had let go of the ball when we both exclaimed in gut wrenching horror “The bikes!!”

          In our insidious eagerness to get the twelve-pound ball to the fire tower and hurl it to its subsequent demise from the top, no thought was given as to where we should park the bikes. They were just a few yards away from the concrete pad we had chosen to send the ball towards its fate. Any inaccuracy in my aim or an erroneous bounce would send the ball on a kamikaze path to our machines. All we could do was watch and hope it would be the other bike that was destroyed by the freefalling projectile.

          The ball hit the concrete pad with a resounding “whack” like an amplified strike from a baseball on a bat on a homerun hit. It bounced back up to, what seemed like, halfway the height of the tower and headed straight towards the bikes. Wizard and I could not bear to watch. We turned our heads away from the destruction that was about to unfold and closed our eyes.

          We both gave a loud sigh of relief when we heard a loud “splat” and not the sound of metal being annihilated.

          Wiz’s bike was the closest to the pad and there, just a few feet away from the right side of his bike, laid the ball, silent and still. Wiz and I descended the tower faster than a kid on Christmas morning.

          The ball showed little sign of damage, save for a small chip. The concrete pad faired just as well. Showing a small bit of imbedded material from the ball.

          Not wanting to carry the ball the ten miles back to town, we unceremoniously carried it into the woods where we buried it under leaves, sticks and a couple of logs hoping no one would find it and begin some kind of investigation.

          In the fifty, or so, years since, I’ve wondered if anyone has found it. Perhaps sometime in the future some archaeologist will be studying our civilization and wonder how a bowling ball ended up in the middle of the woods.