Cruisin'

Let's begin with a picture of me and Frankie around 1957:

I was pretty sure my big brother was really just me closer up and I was an optical illusion, but Norma recently found this snapshot of him and me dressed alike and standing together in front of the fig tree. It is typical of '50s photos. The cameras were excellent but the world was black and white under sepia back then and blurry. I was there. I remember.

Also, things went slower, like our brains. We were generally outdoors all day wondering, very slowly, what was to become of us. If the atomic bomb didn't fall on us, we knew we'd grow up and be in color some day --color was part of puberty-- and have to do work. We didn't exactly know what we were suited for. If we wanted to become politicians in the '50s, we'd have to develop powerful handshakes, learn to smoke cigars and talk real loud. If we wanted to be service station attendants, we'd each have to run at cars from all directions and check dipsticks and tire pressure before they rolled to a stop. If we wanted to be doctors we'd have to find out where they got those special black bags and blue bicycles that they rode out on when we got sick. They were Schwinns. Our doctor rode a Schwinn.

It's been three weeks since an episode sent me to my doctor and began a series of probes and tests to see if my innards were ok and if I had any brains left, but he didn't ride over here on a Schwinn. I had to go see him. When we were kids, the only thing everybody was certain of, in a time of great uncertainty, was we all wanted Schwinn Cruisers. Didn't matter if we became doctors or not, we wanted Schwinns. I am not a doctor. Frankie is not a doctor. He is in color now and still bigger than I am, but I now have something he has not. I went shopping this morning. Bought a Schwinn Cruiser.