By Fred Forseth

The Red Schwinn

       I received it for my seventh birthday. This was before all the high handlebars banana seats. It was a one-speed, and it was beautiful. My only disappointment was my father, knowing my lack of origination even at the age of seven, put the option of the big ugly basket in front of my beautiful red Schwinn. My best friend Steve had the same bike but in black and with cool rear side baskets. It was way more cool, plus you could still slip your baseball glove over the handlebars where the front basket braces made that nearly impossible. Even at seven, I was in touch with cool and uncool. I was almost cool, but what to do about the front basket?

       My father negotiated for a living but never allowed us that option, so it would take a bit of seven-year-old ingenuity to get from un to cool. I knew complaining about it was going to get me nowhere. I knew that just taking it off was going to awaken the part of my father that was the exact part that took his belt off and made threats of soap over lousy language.

       I devised the perfect and foolproof way of getting the basket off the front of my beautiful red Schwinn.  I heard other kids and parents talk about the Gypsies that came through communities and reined chaos. One of the things they had said was that Gypsies stole bikes. That was it. I was going to have a Gypsy incident—foolproof plus a bit dangerous.

       I went into my father’s tool drawer and grabbed the wrenches. I removed the basket and bent it into a heap. I placed it next to the bike in direct vision of where my father parked when he came home from lunch. I had prepared my mother with the foolproof story of Gypsies trying to steal my beautiful and valuable bike basket.  I sat at the kitchen table, spinning the most colorful story of my encounter with Gypsies and my valuable front bike basket. Both my parents listened very intently. This subtle hope that they had given me was beginning to feel comfortable, and I believed that my tale had taken hold. Damn, I was feeling my cool beginning to happen, and I had even pontificated about how I thought the rear basket would be a great replacement. I could see the look on my parent’s faces, and so I believed it was one of relief knowing I was ok and the Gypsies had not kidnapped me.

     The following day, I woke up and went out to my new Red Schwinn, and to my astonishment, the bent basket was back on with its glaring uncoolness, but bent and mutilated. In the basket were the wrenches and a note that said, “The Gypsies forgot to put my wrenches away.”

Fred Forseth: I’ve known Fred for close to 50 years and while I might say he is all over the map, he is also a individual who always seemed to have a few knacks that got my attention. Yes, he was a violent basketball player who had sorta his own rules, not that I was an angel, but he also had what might be called an artistic side. We could all see it in his photographs—some shown here. Recently, his written words have popped up and I could not resist posting them on the Journal site.

In a fit of ambition, I’m intending on bringing in some of our writers to offer an occasional ditty for consumption of the general public so do keep your eyes open and do share our efforts.