One of the favorite pastimes of us boys growing up on Atoah Creek was riding our bicycles. There weren’t many times that we didn’t have skinned knees or elbows or both from wrecks.
We knew about trick riders on motorcycles riding crisscross around each other in close formation. Billy Corbin, Jack Gregory and I decided that we would try that.
Our handle bars locked into each other and all three of us – bikes and all – landed in the brush and a small stream. We climbed back up into the yard, muddy, wet – and yes, skinned up.
We rode our bikes across I.U. Gap Road to a swimming hole at Snowbird Picnic Area. For some reason, there was no fender on the back wheel. I was standing up walking the pedals; Nath Barker was riding on the frame just behind the handle bars and Leonard Bridges was on the seat.
As we were going down a steep hill, the seat flew up and the rear tire began rubbing Leonard’s back end. He was yelling for me to stop, but the brakes were so hot that I couldn’t. We got up so much speed that the bike changed sides of the road. We finally hit a level place and got stopped.
One evening, Billy and I were riding up the road to his house. As I rounded a curve, I ran into the back of a car coming down the road in reverse, driven by Ray Eller. When I struck the car, I was thrown off my bike and into a patch of woods. They were looking behind the car for me as I came back into the road with nothing to show for the worse except a bruised butt.
My bicycle fared much worse; it had a broken fork and was in two pieces.
Another pastime was to go to Metz Cemetery, which is on a hill. We would go to the top of the hill, walk the pedals to get our bikes going as fast as we could.
When we reached Atoah Road, we never thought to check for oncoming traffic. If there had been – at the speed we shot into the road all at once – I doubt if a car could have stopped in time.
Metz Cemetery did teach us a reality about death. We saw the grave of Viola Metz – who was only 15 at the time of her death, just slightly older than us at the time she died. It may have been the first time that it occurred to us that you didn’t have to be old to die.
This stuck with me all the way into adulthood.
I did some research and found out that she had poisoned herself when her parents would not allow her to marry the boy she loved.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.