As my wife and I sat on a brewpub patio in Fort Collins yesterday, enjoying a delightful Sunday afternoon and soaking up the last couple weeks of our FoCo stay, we heard a joyous laugh amidst the sound of skidding bike tires as a man roughly my age came into view on the sidewalk, sliding sideways on his bike. There were shouts of laughter coming just behind him as his family rode up.
And in that moment I was struck by a cool memory I hadn't thought about in years.
The sound of skidding bike tires took me back, beyond my youth and to the childhood of my dad.
My dad was born in 1935 in the small southern Illinois town of Litchfield. So, he grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, and he experienced the challenges that came with that. He used to tell us the story about how there was rationing and shortages due to the war effort, and rubber obviously was particularly hard to come by.
So, all the kids in town were told -- warned -- by their parents that if they wore out their bike tires, they wouldn't be getting a new one until the war was over. So, the kids were extra careful.
And, he said that even as an adult into his later years, he could always remember vividly the day the war was over. For, as soon as the news was announced, all the boys in town were out riding their bikes and skidding up and down the street as much as they could. For it didn't matter anymore if they blew a tire out. The rationing was over.
Such a cool unique memory of a pivotal moment in history. And that memory came crashing into my mind when I heard those bike tires skidding.
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