THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512080223
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
AS EACH CHRISTMAS passes, the memories of my old ``three-wheeler'' grow sharper in focus. And for the last 40 years its whereabouts have haunted me.
According to my mother, it was just a ``hand-me-down'' back in 1948. By the time it got to me, it had already lived through World War II and become a veteran of the concrete sidewalks of Port Norfolk.
When its original owner, Mercer Darden, outgrew it, his mother Dorothy had saved it for me.
I was not quite 2 the Christmas I got it, barely able to sit up and play with the giant front wheel's spokes or even reach for one of the well-worn, hard black rubber pedals.
But by the time I was 4 or 5, I'm told by those who still live along Mount Vernon and Florida avenues, that the sidewalks were not safe when I got on the three-wheeler's rigid saddle seat and raced around those city block corners.
``Makin' 90,'' my Grandmother Weddle would say as I sped off. ``Pedals, just a-flying,'' she'd add.
If those fancy, multi-colored designer tricycles of today come to mind, then erase them immediately.
My ``bike'' had no frills. No decals, lights, handbrakes or baskets detracted from its simple, traditional design.
But it was well-built and heavy as lead with plenty of traction from its weight alone.
The way I picture it now, it was a work of art in an era of ``one-size-fits-all-technology.''
Its standard-size handlebars reacted to the slightest maneuver. It was hard to turn over, but you could go sailing off the thing if you forgot for a second the precarious perch upon which you sat.
It had but one speed and that was full speed - the standard of any little boy with a ``big boy's bike.''
But come one Christmas several years later, I graduated to the ``two-wheeler'' complete with frontlight, saddlebags and tasseled handlebars.
Now concentrating on riding with my Saturday morning TV heroes, Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers, I deserted my old, trusty three-wheeler.
Whether it was from the new and ever-widening horizons that the two-wheeler offered, or age, I simply don't remember seeing the three-wheeler go.
Assuming that my mother would remember over four decades exactly what became of my first wheels, I called her the other day to ask when it was thrown away.
``We didn't throw away things like that then,'' she said. ``All the mothers in the neighborhood knew which boy or girl would get the next toy that another had outgrown. Your
three-wheeler went to Kenny Simpson, who, you remember, lived across from your grandmother on Mount Vernon.''
For a moment I was satisfied as an image of a 3- or 4-year-old Kenny Simpson came to mind. There he was blazing the same trails as I did over to the pump station at Bruce Place, going up and down the wooden-ramped bread wagon behind the Buckners and around the giant pecan tree to the front door of the playhouse at the Armisteads.
He was now ambushing the ice truck, stopping by the ``steam and pressers'' to watch the cloud of vapor cover the alley with each new load of laundry and waving at all the older men on Saturday morning sitting in Carl's barbershop.
Then my thoughts of the past came to a skidding halt. Locking the churning pedals of that three-wheeler in time was the thought that Kenny was now a grown man like myself and would have outgrown it as I did.
I ended my conversation with my mother with some arcane cliche about how ``all things must come to an end,'' but still the memory lingered.
Then last week, to get into the Christmas spirit, I took the family to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg. Their doll houses and toys of Christmases centuries ago always help me get into the spirit of the season and reinforce my belief that perhaps something given in love will last forever.
Entering the main hallway of an exhibit that features both 1920 and 1820-era doll houses side-by-side, I suddenly came to a halt.
As my wife and children continued on toward the doll houses, something in the toy exhibit to the right pulled at my attention.
There it was - deadringer for my three-wheeler.
To my surprise the very epitome of my Christmas memories had stood the test of time - even defied it - as a permanent artifact of the museum.
``Look over here - here it is,'' I shouted and drew the attention of not only my family, but several other visitors and one of the security guards.
I had to stop myself from going up on the raised platform on which it sat and trying out the seat. I caught myself just in time, but managed to touch the handlebar and front wheel.
I read the brief label:
``This example owned by Walter Raleigh Old-Knott's Neck Point Farm, near Portsmouth, Virginia.''
For several seconds, time pedaled in reverse for me.
My wife and children appreciated my enthusiasm but took off to another part of the museum, leaving me in the kind of suspended animation that comes when you know you've found something important that was lost.
My recollection of my three-wheeler wasn't just a dream.
I knew the moment wouldn't last forever. But for a few magic minutes, I lost myself to the memories of Christmases long ago when I was a kid on a three-wheeler who owned the streets of Port Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by ALAN FLANDERS
Nicholas Flanders, 6, admires a 19th century three-wheeler at the
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Arts Center. The bike is a dead-ringer
for the one his dad had as a child.
by CNB