"there was an accident last night, no, no, your parents are ok! There was a fire last night. About midnight there was an explosion and your new home burnt down. I've talked to your parents and they can't get back here until this evening. Billy your Dad ask me to go look at it, he suggested I take you along so you can talk to Jack and Shirlie about it,"
I was the oldest. I'd known Uncle Jim all my life and yet this was the first time I been alone with him, and until we lost him nearly 40 years later it was to be the last time I'd be alone with him, sadly I remember nothing of that very long 3 mile trip.
Everything we had burnt that night except 3 or 4 changes of clothes we had with us. All I really remember was seeing my bike it's frame sagging after melting in the heat, it's big balloon tires now two streaks of soot against a brick wall. That's the only image I have of that bike.
That bike that had meant freedom! That bike that had opened the world to a boy, like all boys, living on the edge of suburbia.
It's hard to imagine the freedom of movement that bike granted a kid. Times were different, kids were safer than today, traffic was the only real danger, pedophiles were few and far between. Kids, old enough to find there way home, could be safely let out. Yes, I was privileged.
That bike wouldn't be replaced for another year. Little did I know just how much freedom that year and the next would bring. We moved to the farm just before school started the next year, that spring I got a new bike for my tenth birthday in April. Shortly there after my farther brought home my first horse! Goldie was a small Arabian grade mare, palomino most of the year, in the spring she'd show a dark brown pattern similar to chicken wire. Goldie was to change and dominate my life for the next twenty years. It took a year for me to control that horse or more correctly for her to train me. By the next spring Goldie and I had a fifty mile range on any given day, I had freedom of movement, I had independence, I had responsibility!
I was a happy kid, I was lucky, and grateful.
By that second spring, Jack and Shirlie now had horses of their own, but lacking Goldie's speed and incredible endurance, they lacked or failed to utilize their freedom of movement. We grew up so much alike, but o'so different!
I have to thank bikes and Goldie for a lot of my independence, but I can't forget gasoline! Gas and I go back even farther than Goldie and the bikes. My Father and both my Grand Fathers were fisherman, being the oldest boy (on my Father's side) I started fishing long before I was out of diapers. I learned to fish, but never really liked it. What I did love was being with those three men and their friends and a never ending love of the water.
By two I would sit in Grandpa's boat tied to the dock by a 100 or so feet of rope and row around the world, well my little world. By three I could start Grandpa's "Mighty- Mite" outboard, Mother panicked. Grandpa bought a stouter rope. By four I was allowed off the rope, I could take the boat 4 or 5 miles across the lake to my Aunt Teen and Uncle Bernard's house! Uncle Bernard taught me to drive his speed boat at 8 so I could tow my two older water skiing cousins, but the next summer Bonnie like her older sister Beth discovered boys, and they didn't need or want me around to drive or chaperone. So began my life long love affair with gasoline.
I learned to drive farm tractors and pick-ups, but that was work. For fun I built a cart to tow behind the walk behind garden tractor, that Christmas I got a set of good ball bearing wheels and an axle for my cart. Come spring with my new wheels installed I experimented with different pulleys and added considerable speed to my contraption. Dad was real proud of me until he found me going down the road at 50 mph! You see there were no brakes except the soles of my shoes. It was back to the garden for the little tractor.
We left the farm 5 years later, Goldie went with us. I was 15 when Dad replaced the car we'd rebuilt for Mother. (See: Dad's Shop) They wanted something newer for me to learn to drive in. Dad got us a Ford station wagon, a truly great choice for his family now with five kids. I finished drivers education shortly after my 15th birthday. My permit in hand and 10 months to go before I could get my license, Dad made sure I drove when ever the family was together, by my birthday I had driven well over 10,000 miles on roads, wet and dry, ice and snow, towing trailers with and without live stock. If I went there with Mom or Dad I drove. April 16, 1964, "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last." Mother took part of the afternoon off, picked me up at school and took me to the Sheriff's office, 30 minutes later I was a licensed driver! I took Mother back to work. According to Mother it was 3 hours later when they spotted me driving down the street with my arm around a busty blond. It's not true! Sunny was busty, but never blond.
They spotted me because while it was my birthday, Mom got the present, they picking up a new car for Mom, all to herself. (It was too, until Jack got his permit 3 months later.)
Until I finished school two years later they never asked for the keys to the station wagon. When in January 1966 I bought my own first car, Mother objected, no child of hers would have their own car until after they finished high school. Mine sat in the yard until June. Mother wanted control. She never exercised it, but it was her car and she could say no! From license to graduation that car got a lot of use, my Grandparents and grade school friends were 150 miles north, my best friends and I would often take $5 each and take off Friday nights, we saw a lot of Southern Michigan, Northern Ohio, Indiana, and even Illinois. That car was handy with the back seat down you could and we often did, seat 16 high school kids in the back, plus 3 up front. As long as we stayed out of trouble we could do just about anything, that didn't mean we didn't have problems, one Friday night 18 of us were out at the local radio station, on the air with a friendly DJ until the station when off the air at 2am, the gas tank was full, every one had chipped in a quarter to fill the tank. We were the last ones out of the building and as we were loading our friendly DJ drove away. I then backed over a rock poking a hole in the gas tank, I called Dad. Dad made 4 trips to get all those kids home, just before sunrise he came back for my best friend and I with a chain. We towed the car home, the next morning all he said was you'd better fix that tank. It's been 44 years and I'm still excepting the other shoe to drop.
I commuted to collage, 30 miles each way, five times a week. I dated two girls 150 miles apart, for 6 years. I traveled. In the six months Brenda and I were engaged one of us traveled 60 to 80 miles each way almost every night. How different life would have been with out freedom of movement.
Brenda and I continued to travel. She bought me an airplane, I learned to fly. We got a camper trailer when the kids were young. We parked it next to my horse trailer and our boat trailer. My first partner had two planes, our ability and willingness to travel made us a very valuable two some. My real estate has taken me from all over Michigan, south to Florida, west to Texas, Nevada and California.
I've had some very interesting cars over the years, but what I remember is what I did with them and with who. Where are people today going to build such memories? Where are they going to learn independence? Where are they going to learn responsibility? How are they going to take advantage of opportunity, if it's to far to walk? Are all those electronic pen-pals to remain unmet? Is the incredible beauty of Northen Michigan or Lake Tahoe to remain unseen. Are campers to be relegate to the very rich. Little cars can't tow trailers, are hobbies and sports to be restricted to what will fit in a small car? Are distant jobs to be restricted to a very select few. Is the wonder of flight to be limited to commercial planes? Is the pure pleasure of time on the water to be restricted to sail boaters?
Are we to become Europe? Or maybe Japan? Are we to become totally urbanized? Are we to live like rats in a maze? Are we to give up freedom of movement? Are we to accept a lesser life style? Is lack of free movement any different than being surrounded by chain-link and concertina wire? Are our Grandchildren to ever know the freedom we experienced? Are we to be ashamed for enjoying life?
Bill
William J Archambault Jr
