Gettin' High On One Wheel

Like all neighborhoods people move in and move out and move on. The two older Corrado boys, Bob and Richie, graduated college and moved on. Their widowed mom Edith and the youngest boy Timmy, moved elsewhere. No more late night listening to the latest Doors LP or dicussing how the performance of last week's Cream concert compared with the same songs on their last record made in the studio. No more stopping by for a cup of Mrs. C's coffee after work when she'd yell out "yoo-hoo, Al, ready for some coffee?" Or the time the nice little old lady who lived between Mrs. C's house and mine was drinking coffee with us and asked me if I'd like a "nice bowl of fresh mushroom soup". The two of them were happy as could be, smiling and giggling like a couple of school girls. I said "sure". She went home and brought me a cup of delicious mushroom soup.I finished the bowl of soup and was almost through with my coffee when it hit me! Bob, Richie, and a few of their friends had gone out gathering "magic mushrooms" the day before. Hallucinagenic magic mushrooms. They did make some tasty soup!

After the Corrados moved on the Whiteheads bought the house, with two boys about 11 and 14 and a daughter Shirley who was about 8. The older boy, Phillip, got a new 10-speed bike. You couldn't get him off it, it seemed. Like most of the youngsters in the early 70's he inverted the handlebars. They were no longer in a position favoring a crouched over riding stance for cutting through the wind, but it made it a lot easier to pull the front wheel up off of the street and do a "wheelie". Some kids could ride seemingly forever up on just the one wheel, even negotiating corners in that position. Of course all that weight on just one wheel was more than it was really designed for, and it didn't do the bike any good. Within a few years kids were all riding bikes with small wheels, fatter tires, and small sturdy frames designed for wheelies and jumping off of the home made ramps that began to clutter the streets. By then Phillip was all grown up and the Whiteheads had moved elsewhere also.