PART I: How I did not let a bike accident that was one of the most indigent things that ever happened to me or happen to any cyclist keep me down and the empowerment it gave me to change a metropolitian area for fellow cyclist!
As everyone has already read from my first post I grew up in my family and a city, New Port Richey, FL, that encouraged bike riding and cycling as both a mode of transportation and a mode of leisure time sports. I don't remember too well my first two bikes, the one I got on my 6th birthday on November 8, 1969 or my second bike that I got sometime after I turned 10 years old, but I fondly remember my third bike that I got when I turned 17 years old on November 8, 1980 and both for good and not so good memories but the bad ones I have turned hopefully into something good for not only myself but for others.
My third bike that I got on my 17th birthday on November 8, 1980 was one of two prized possessions that I got that memorable birthday. One of the presents which I might mention, again, as to certain aspects of it during the rest of the three parts of this story was a vinyl copy of one of my favorite albums of all time the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" that me and my brother who is just a year and half older than me wore out the grooves on our older sister's copy of it back in the 1960's and 1970's. (I mention "Rubber Soul" because that vinyl copy was given to me just a month before the brutal and senseless killing of my favorite Beatle, John Lennon, which was one of the saddest days when I was in high school. I also identify with John Lennon a great deal because many are probably aware of his cheeky side, which I also have, but probably don't exhibit so openly {John was also the most thought provoking of the Beatles both in terms of the music he wrote and presented but also many of his comments both during and after the time the Beatles were together as a group}.) My other prized possession I got on my 17th birthday was again my third bike an American made Trek 730 series. Here is a photograph of a Trek 730 made in 1979 (my 1980 made one was not too dissimiliar and actually was in the same color) presented by a Tom Adams (thank you Mr. Adams):
http://www.vintage-trek.com/Trek_galleryTA.htm
Like many of the early Trek made bikes, Trek was the first company, in 1976, to mass produce quick release road bikes. As seen in Tom Adams photos. That part of the ability to quick release that bike, especially the tires, is important to portions of this first part of this story.
That Trek 730 bike also took me very far and too places I never thought I'd ever go at the time I got it as a birthday present. Indeed, at the time I got the Trek 730 for my birthday I had had and would continue to have a very difficult time learning how to drive a car. I do believe that I had problems with eye-hand coordination and sight-distance and so was my family convinced of that. (For example: One time I drove the car into the side of our house, while my mother was in the car with me, YIKES! for her back. Another time I drove the car into a fence slightly outside of New Port Richey while my second oldest sister was in the car!) I think that the present of the Trek 730 was not only because I wanted it, but perhaps a hint that I needed to seriously consider that I would have to use the bike to get many places instead of trying to drive a car.
Well, when life deals you lemons you make lemonade right? That's what I had to do with having a bike to rely on, for the most part, for transportation instead of a car. That Trek 730 bike would see me through many of my transportation needs and WANTS all the way to my 24th birthday on November 8, 1987.
Throughout the remaining months of my high school experience I had to drive/ride that bike many places to get around. Many times several of my friends who were driving would deride me, but then again I realized that I wasn't contributing to the pollution level by emitting so much nasty oil and gas emissions. Of course, I was a litle more geekier than I would become during my college years, that's when I left, nearly literally many of my male friends or acquantances behind who were relying on their cars for transportation, and believe it or not, not just in terms of the transportation aspect of relying on a bike instead of a car. (Yeah, prepare for some interesting and rather revealing true stories.)
In my first full year of college, in 1982, while I was attending St. Petersburg Junior College in Tarpon Springs, Florida 10 miles to the south of where we lived in New Port Richey that Trek 730 bike saved my hide (and me being on the Dean's List of A/B students that year) on two important occassions. Usually to get to the Tarpon Springs campus of St. Petersburg Junior College I relied on two of my high school friends who were also attending St. Petersburg Junior College via car to get there. But on one very memorable occassion, in the summer of 1982, one of my friends forgot to set his alarm and did not come to pick me up to take me to St. Petersburg Junior College and I got antsy because I had a paper, in one of my Psychology courses, I had to turn in that would mean the difference between an "A" and a "B", so I packed my backpack and my helmet and despite my mother's protestations got on my Trek 730 bike and drove it all the way down to the Tarpon Springs campus of St. Petersburg Junior College (thank goodness for Trek's fortitude to make quick releases, because if they had not I would have been in more trouble, because I forgot to take my lock with me and had to quick release the bike and carry it around to hand in the paper! And yes I got that "A"!) And I drove the bike back to New Port Richey later that afternoon 10 miles the opposite direction! The other time I had to rely on the bike because someone forgot to pick me up, was luckily an off-day at St. Petersburg Junior College for me, but an important day for me otherwise. That was because that day was the day of the midtern general elections of 1982 in November of that year and that was my opportunity to cast my second vote of my life (my first was in September of that year in the Florida primary). I'm still so proud of the fact that I drove my bike to the precinct where we voted in downtown New Port Richey at the shuffleboard club on Grand Boulevard, because if I hadn't I do wonder if perhaps it might have meant some trouble in getting my later to be known by me friends, Governor Bob Graham and U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles re-elected and a family friend of ours, Betty Castor elected to the State Senate as the first woman elected official to represent me in the state capitol of Tallahassee.
When I got to the University of South Florida in Tampa, in the fall of 1983, that Trek bike continued to be a very great source of transportation and of leisure sports. I know that people probably thought that I was a little naive to rely just on a bike in north Tampa, but for me it was proud symbal of the fact that I wasn't polluting the environment as much as some of peers who drove cars. Indeed that bike increased my need and ability to work on an issue I will get back to in the second and third parts of this story and that was working and lobbying against Offshore Oil drilling off the Florida coast by being able to go some places that cars couldn't go, such as apartment and condo complexes and dorms, to help me help volunteer for the Florida Public Interest Research Group's campaign on the issue (as well as several others.)
I also found another wonderful way to use my bike. And that was in the area of sexual pursuits. As I became at the time less geekier and more, yeah I don't like to admit it but sexier, with my curly brown hair and baby blue eyes I noticed more women got interested in me when I drove my bike instead of driving a car. Indeed two of my favorite sexual experiences because I drove a bike, and they both appealed to my John Lennon type cheeky side. The first one of those experiences was being pulled into the stacks on the fourth floor of the University of South Florida's main Tampa campus library for a memorable sexual intercourse in those stacks by a young woman who just loved me in my biker shorts and helmet! (Yeah, we could have been caught, and I think we made plenty of noise, but luckily we weren't, but the thrill was there.) The other sexual experience happened when I was dating a woman ten years older than me, and one day at her apartment while I had on a similiar pair of biker shorts and a helmet she pulled me into an embrace and we had sexual intercourse on the balcony of her apartment, outside! (Again, wasn't caught, but the thrill was there!)
But as with many things, with the sun and the good times sometimes rain must pour, both literally and figuratively as it did with me on one March afternoon in the year 1985. At the time of this incident and accident I was living with my brother off-campus in an apartment in Temple Terrace about 2 miles to the east of the University of South Florida main campus. Unfortunately for me, this one day that I totally forgot to take my helmet with me (people forget that back then, helmets weren't the law and they were not as encouraged as they later would be.) I was driving my bike and about to make a right turn as I always did onto a side road that led to the main thoroughfare 56th Street where across from it was me and my brothers apartment. This side road entrance from the right turn had a fairly for Florida large hill sloping down and I was aware of it and always took proper caution to slow down when making the right turn and let my bike coast slowly but surely down the hill. But on this particular right turn a driver (never would find out if it was a man or a woman) made a left turn in front of me! I tried to stop but couldn't because I was too far down the slope, then I tried to swerve and the car driver wouldn't yield and I and my Trek 730 bike ended up flying through the air and I landed a couple of feet away my forehead crashing too the pavement below!
My bike, luckily for me, landed just inches away and probably cushioned the fall for me, just a bit in terms of my body core. For several minutes, which seemed like an eternity, I layed there with my forehead open and with blood gushing out wondering to myself where was the driver and why weren't they returning. I then realized that I felt exposed, even naked to the possibility of other drivers perhaps running into me. Somehow I was able to lift my head and then the rest of my body, quick release the tires on my Trek 730 and get myself and the bike off of the road and onto a grassy area in the right of way not too far away from the apartment complex on the corner opposite of where the car had sent me and my bike flying. When I did get up briefly to do that, the usual bright Florida sun seemed even more brighter than before reminding me of the Classic Rock song, "Blinded By The Light", as blood ran into my eyes from my forehead (I've heard that that is a common thing for head injury victims to experience light in brighter hues than they normally would.) I also noticed a young woman outside of her apartment quickly go inside of her apartment.
As I lay there on the grass, again for what seemed like an eternity, I continued to feel exposed and yes, even naked, and wondered if anyone even took notice of what was happening. That's when I heard a woman's footsteps in the grass and then heard what I assumed was the young woman I had seen earlier yell out at me, "Are you okay?" I know she was trying to be helpful, but at the time all I could think of was, "Oh, yes, I just love to lay in the grass with my head open bleeding. I do it for a past-time." A few seconds later I heard sirens and then the two EMS workers took me inside to the woman's apartment as I was able to mouth that the sunlight was too much. The one EMS worker continued to make sure I was conscious by holding up his fingers and the other one prepared the (I'm forgetting the name of it, exactly) thing that they lay you on to transport you in the EMS vehicle. I did overhear the young woman give a description of the vehicle, to the police officer, but she couldn't get the driver's license number and the driver was never caught, and that would make me feel so much indignity at the thought that the driver had just left me there with no thought that I might be someones son, brother, nephew, uncle or cousin (all of which I was at the time) or even maybe father (which I wasn't), but more importantly didn't I deserve better than that just as a human being? The EMS workers I would find out about 3 hours later after I awoke upright, from some medicine they had given me at the scene, in the emergency room they had transported me to Tampa General hospital about 20 minutes to the south of the University of South Florida (the University of South Florida hospital at the time was not nearly the hospital it would later become.)
As I sat there, in a groggy state, I heard my brother's voice, and the doctor talking to him saying that I was purely lucky that I didn't fall into a permanent coma! I also noticed that I had a huge white bandage wrapped around my head, and could feel the surgical scars underneath on my forehead of the stiches that I received where my head had been opened. I was allowed to go back to our apartment that night, but I could only go to sleep upright. And my brother had to come into my bedroom for what seemed every half-hour, but was instead only every hour to make sure I didn't lie down and perhaps fall into a coma! (To say that was one of worst nights of sleep I ever had is an understatement.) For about a week and a half I had to wear the bandage around and had to be careful how I washed my head and hair. I was so relieved when the doctors removed my bandage and also the stiches, because I was never so grateful to get home and shampoo my hair as I was that day. During the time I had the bandage on I did use it in a very humorous way as I pretended to my classmates that I was Johnny Carson's character of Carnac the Magnificent and could read what was inside envelopes! But the pain of realizing that I might have been moments away from a permanent coma and being left on the side of the road with such an injury lingered throughout that week and a half. Luckily that Trek 730 bike survived intact, had to put the quick release tires back on, but that was a wonderful thing. And I did drive my bike again through that area, where I had my accident, although it took me a couple of weeks to do so as I guess I had survivor's trauma.
At the time I had my bike accident one of the classes I was taking to get my Bachelor of Arts in History was a Public Speaking course. Shortly after, in April 1985, having my bandage and stiches removed I was told by the instructor of the Public Speaking course that if I did not get an "A" in my last speech a persuasion speech I would not be able to get a "B" and would be left with only getting a "C" something I really DID not want to have happen. So, I decided to research the issue of why the University of South Florida Tampa campus area and the Tampa Bay area as a whole had not bike lanes and bike routes (or very little), at the time, and what could be done to lobby our government officials to get them to start being put up and drawn. I even found supporting evidence that in Gainesville, Florida around the University of Florida campus that the amount of bike fatalities had sharply decreased in more than half due to the amount of bike lanes and bike routes they had there. I also used my bandage that I kept in my persuasion speech and sure enough I got my "A"! But I got even something more to be proud of from that speech a few years later, when in October 1988 I was volunteering on the campaign of then Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis for U.S. President and I met up with a young woman who had been a classmate of mine, in that Public Speaking course, who was also working on Dukakis's campaign but was also lobbying for getting bike lanes and bike routes throughout the Tampa Bay area. That's when I found out from her that that group was using notes from my persuasion speech for their lobbying purposes! She asked me if minded, and I said, "NO!", because I was just thrilled that what I said was being used to try and prevent bike accidents like mine from occurring again! I did say jokingly, "Maybe I should have had my speech copyrighted!" We laughed, I really didn't mean that. To me, it wasn't about getting the glory, it was about doing the right thing to prevent bike accidents like mine from occurring again. I didn't want another person to feel exposed and even naked after being left so cavalierly lying on the road with their forehead split open or worse. To me, I know it may sound naive to some, but it isn't about one person, it's about the end result of some better outcome.
Yes, I do miss that Trek 730, but it served me well, and it was a survivor just like I was. I have been back in the Tampa Bay area since, and I am always so thrilled and so proud that more and more bike lanes and bike routes have sprung up in the area and I am so proud that my persuasion speech helped to make that happen!
A few years ago, I was again in the Tampa Bay area, in March 2009 (on a day not too disimiliar to the day that I had my bike accident 24 years earlier) , and I got off a Transit bus near 56th Street and the road where I had my accident (me and my brother's complex was still there) and decided to walk down that street in the opposite direction from where I had started to make my way to that apartment back in March 1985. I was totally amazed and so proud when I got to the five blocks before where I had my bike accident. Indeed, I was amazed because in the intervening years the people of that area (I recognized the apartment complex where that young woman had called 911 and had come out to see if I was okay) had let those five blocks be bulldozed down into a flat surface, had replaced it with sand, and then had let grass grow and had built side lanes big enough for both bike riders and walkers. When I got to that area, several bike riders passed me by with one of them looking at me as though I had lost my mind (in some respects I felt as though I did, because in my pride my mind was just totally blown away that I knew that there would never ever be a bike rider or cyclist that suffered the same indignity as I did 24 years earlier!) I started saying outloud, that this was so wonderful that no one on a bike would ever have to face the injury or worse that I did because of the vision that was before me created by the residents, obviously, of that area. A young man, who was walking his dog suddenly asked me what I was talking about and I told him the story of what this place looked like back in March 1985 and about my bike accident and he was totally blown away and he said to me that he was also a bike rider and that he was very thankful and proud of what I had accomplished. I smiled and said thank you and wished him well in his travels on his bike.
No comments:
Post a Comment