I started driving my motor scooter around our neighborhood when I was twelve. Those of you in the Class of '65 will remember...
Paddock road from in front of Steve W. and Rick P.'s house to Olive Branch was gravel, as was much of Fairview Road, Railroad Road, and many of the secondary roads in the area. On the heavily traveled parts of these roads the gravel was pushed aside, leaving a crown of gravel in the center of the road, and along both sides. Trying to navigate these roads with a motor scooter with its small tires was exciting...
Crossing over that crown of gravel was like driving on marbles. Some of my scooter riding friends hated it. I learned early to keep the machine pointed in the direction I wanted and allow the gyroscopic effect of the tires to carry me safely across. I never fell, thank goodness.
All those old roads are paved now, of course.
Progress?
I miss 'em. Do you?
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Luckily our portion of Paddock was chip-sealed.
The little brothers and a friend were bike-riding on the gravel portion of the road one day. Mark was a passenger on Mike's bike, with their buddy close behind. As they topped the hill at Harry's, Mark accidentally stuck the toes of one of his bare feet in the spokes of the front wheel of their bike.
That caused the bike to go end over end. Since their buddy was so close behind, he joined in the wreckage. They were all knocked silly (well, sillier than they normally were). When the stars quit swirling around their heads, they got up and started doing damage assessments.
Then one of them noticed the blood gushing from Mark's shin. This wasn't an ordinary scrape, but down to the bone. It was a mess. They took off to Harry's to get help.
When the boys got home, Mom nearly passed out. Luckily, Ode and Romanza came over and took charge. Romanza worked on calming down our mom as she got ready to take Mark to the hospital.
If I remember right, Mark ended up having 40-some stitches, inside and out, to put his leg back together.
There are other stories that come to mind when I think of that gravel hill in front of Harry's house...Rita's UFO sighting, the time that the Branam's "city" cousin ran me off the road at that spot...but for some reason this morning, it was the horrendous bike wreck.
...wish I had it on video.
For a long time when we lived there, the gravel started just after Ratliff's place. The chip seal road was great in the hot summer when you could steer your bike wheels into the bubbles of the hot tar to pop them.
I think it was still gravel when Cissy was driving, topped Featherston's hill too fast and lost control in The Green Slime (my brother's car) sending us in the ditch.
And I wasn't the only one that saw the UFO's. Penny P, Patty W and the pastor of the EUB church saw them too. It made The Daily Journal headlines.
Flying scaucers??? Can any of thier opinions and scurrilous accusations of me have any validity? :-) It was still a gravel road when we had that bike wreck. It looked like me and Mike had been in a motorcycle wreck, we were tore up! When my daughter was maybe 9 or 10, I had to go get her on a bicycle because it was getting dark. I was trailing her back to our friends house side-saddle and the thought of that wreck came to mind. Not wanting her to make the same mistake I did ( letting my foot swing back into the front spokes) I warned her not to do that and for good measure I related that old story of what happened to me and mike. It was really dark by then and the next thing I knew we were flying through the air. Yeah you guessed it, I guess kids just can't take a daddy's word for anything, she had to see it for herself. As we were going over, my first thought was not to land on my little hard headed girl so I did everthing I could do to clear her as I hit the pavement. Landed on my shoulder and the re-enactment wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the hospital for the both of us. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Well, the now paved roads sure cuts down on the options for "parking." I don't know, I am just saying.
I remember my neightbor Jack Williams was one of the first with his little greenish Vespa, I thought he was the coolest.
It is just wrong for them to bring the city to the Valley. Just wrong.
Amen, GoldenHorse! Don't know my own home any more.
GB, The first time I rode a scooter on a gravel road was ugly. I didn't know how to stop so I put my feet down, toes first. Should tell you also I had on sandels. My toes looked like hamburger.
BoMarGirl
Seems no one misses the "character" of the old gravel roads but me.
I know part of my fondness for them relates to my wishing to return the community to the atmosphere we grew up with...
And that cannot happen with the influx of people and $$$$ that has poured into our old haunts since we left.
Search VK for my post on "Podunk".
I bet even the roads there are oiled and chipped now!
Bo I have to ask-
Why would you "GO" on a machine if you didn't know how to "STOP"?
I'm glad it was just your feet that ended up looking like hamburger girl!
G.B. I know the Podunk area well and it was just about all gravel when we used to load are cars with beer and wind our way down that tangeled bunch of roads. We had some interesting times down there, even got shot at and chase out of there one night when we picked the wrong spot to stop the car and release some of the beer we had consumed. The roads are all paved now and even the one lane wooden bridge that crossed over the railroad tracks on St. rd 44 has been demolished. I don't think Podunk even exists anymore except in our memories.
Thanks C&C.
I had gotten an email from Hawkeye asking if I could remember the directions to get to Podunk. All I can remember is that we'd go West on hwy 44 off 135 and about halfway to Martinsville we'd turn South and then just wind our way around.
So it's all developed now?
I'm not surprised.
It's still pretty much farm land and woods, but they straightened up big sections of 44 and like I said paved all the roads, I remember one really fun road we call the "Backbone" really steep gravel hill that you really had to get a good head of steam to climb, it's paved now too I believe. I can't remember how we used to get there, but I know we used to take all backroads to get there. Those were the days huh G.B.?
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