Nov. 19, 2001 - 19:33 PST

THE WONDERING JEW

The Ball Bearing Kid

Movement faster than by running fascinated me from my first knowing personna. Once I was lucky enough to be at my cousin's place and watched a man down the alley work on a wheel and axle from some small device, it wasn't large but it did have these funny, shiny round beads in around the axle. In a good natured way he taught me about the whys of ball bearings explained to me in words of one cylinder, which I was able to understand. He let me spin the wheel when he had it together again, I think my eyes got big and round as dollars on seeing how easily and rapidly it spun. No real exertion was needed to make it whirl and I was really amazed.

He told me that steel, sidewalk roller skates also had ball bearings and with a lesson learned my romance with roller skates began. I had been watching the big kids go whizzing by and now I understood why they could go so fast with no apparent energy expended. I desired a pair, in fact dreamed of them, yearned for them. I let my desires be known to Mom and Dad repetitively as well as frequently, over and over again and reminding them often too.

I guess they gave me a pair of the longed for sidewalk roller skates sooner than they had confidence in my coordination and balance. But anyway, at an early age I received a wonderful pair of skates and the key to tighten them on my shoes hung aroound my neck. Elated wasn't the word, I was more Hans than Brinker, thrilled at having the dreamed for skates.

I had my share of tumbles and sidewalk burns and scabs on various parts of my anatomy, but very soon I was quite ambulant on the neighborhood sidewalks. Learning the dangers and pitfalls of crossing streets dimmed my enthusiasm but only momentarily, it was mastered in a short time.

Sometime in that era I was learning to swim at the YMCA downtown, approximately forty blocks away. I soon began to skate down there, swim and then skate back home again. A new part of my life opened wide before me, one on wheels, speedy wheels that had not been available to me before, something dreamed of but not within my expectations for a long, long time.

It didn't take much longer to skate somewhere than riding a street car, so I lived a good part of my spare time on wheels. Seems as if I wore out several pair of skates and was on my last pair. I found out that bicycles had ball bearings too and so was born my next love, riding a bicycle.

Bicycling seemed to be an impossible dream for me, Mom was a Western Union branch office manager in the downtown area. Back then telegrams were sent over the wire and delivered by messenger boys who wore fancy olive drab uniforms swooshing along on their bikes. The trouble was that Mom spent some of her spare time visiting one or another of her messenger boys in hospital and some who had worked at her office and then moved on to another branch. She feared that I would get crashed up like they did, so she wouldn't think of me having a bike.

But, boylike, and a rebel to boot, I managed to master the art of bicycle riding by begging or dealing for the use of the bikes of neighbor kids and of friends. I started out riding on empty school grounds, gradually mastering riding on the streets. I still rode on the school grounds trying to learn to do the fancy stuff the bigger kids could do.

As I grew the knowledge that our world ran on ball and roller bearings still was a fascination that led me to further greasy investigations and study.

Funny thing, hanging out at Mom's office led me to learn to type, practising on her extra, student Simplex machine. I still had to learn the formalities of typing, margins and business letters and stuff like that but typing was a creampuff course for me in Junior High. I learned on an L. C. Smith boat anchor which was a bit fancier that the old open frame Underwood typewriter I used when I worked on the railroad during the war.

Communication became my second love, but my first ? Why of course I still was The Ball Bearing Kid . . . . . . .

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