Wheels

Photo collection of Midge Frazel

Wheels

The photo on the left shows little seven year old me with my first big girl bicycle. My tricycle and my little pedal car were kept at my grandparent's house. This girls bike was blue (I think) and was brought by the Easter Bunny on that very snowy winter where there was no Easter. The bike basket and the horn were part of the big egg hunt which I am sure was held the next weekend at my grandparents house. This was the last Easter my grandfather would be alive. He died in June of 1955. I see my mother's yellow forsythia bush is blooming despite the cold from April's snow.

The best thing about bikes is that there is a taste of freedom that comes with them. I could now go all the way to both edges of "The Plat". The kids who were on my school bus and lived at the end of the development became real playmates and I could walk or ride to the Pontiac Library in nearby Warwick. There's a little history on that Web page and Miss Knight gave me my first library card.  I love to read. This web page shows the library and All Saints Church which is next door to the library. I went to preschool Sunday School there. After that, my parents decided to join the new Woodridge Congregational Church near Garden City. Dad was raised as a Baptist and didn't like the "high church" Episcopal All Saints. Compromise was in order. My aunt and uncle became my godparents and joined the church with my parents. I sang in the adult choir instead of attending Sunday School by the time I was in the 6th grade.

The other photo, taken by me, in 1962, is in the beginning of my own photo collection albums and gave me the idea that my grandparent's and parent's photo collections should be scanned and put in archival bags and be put in chronological order. That's not how my mother organized them.

In 1962, my friend Donna, who is wearing a scarf on her head, got a collie puppy named Tammy. I am not a dog person but Tammy was a good animal and loved playing with us girls. Donna lived on Hilltop Drive and her dad still lives in the same house in "The Plat".

The other girl in this photo is deceased. Her name was Barbara Burque and she lived with her parents and (very cute) older brother at 168 Hilltop Drive. Barbara grew up and became a medical technologist and worked at the Rhode Island Hospital after I got married and moved to Massachusetts. She married a man who lived in our "sister" neighborhood and they had a little boy. Barbara died far too young.

On weekends, I would go to the other end of Hilltop Drive looking for kids to ride bikes with. My neighborhood in Stow has streets like "The Plat" with a convenience store with a Dunkin Donuts inside. Soon, the kids will be riding around in here, past my porch and out into the nearby world. Our streets here are named for varieties of apples. A reader of my blog asked about the names of the streets in "The Plat" and I don't know why they are named that. It was hilly so that's probably a reason for part of the names. I know this because we had to really push to ride our bikes uphill to my house.

Life is an uphill battle, isn't it? But, the adventures and people along the way are worth the ride.