Freedom and the gas prices...

I'm a big fan of freedom.  I'm sure you are as well.

I can remember my first steps into freedom.  I was a little guy back then.  Times were different.  It was the seventies.  At six years old, I was able to walk down the main street to my friends house.  His house was a block and a half away.  But, it was a busy street with no sidewalks and I had to walk with traffic.   So, I was the bomb and I knew it.



I ended up with a hand me down Schwinn for my first bike.  While my friends all had BMX bikes, I was sportin' the Schwinn.  Have you ever tried to jump ramps on a Schwinn?  I hated that bike.  I had learned to ride a bike on this bike.  As I was learning, my brother had me play a game of follow the leader.  He was riding his bike ahead and I just had to follow.  Sounds easy enough.  It was a fun game you know.  He started zigging and zagging between trees.  I'm afraid I hadn't yet developed the coordination needed to zig and zag properly at this point.  So, head on into the tree I went. 

In just a couple of years, I would get my BMX.  It was a yellow and black Huffy.  I felt this was the ultimate in freedom.  I was like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider.  Although, not so psychedelic.  Where I grew up, there were a series of canals that connected the lakes.  These canals were my stomping grounds.  If I wasn't fishing in the canal, I'd be playing in the woods beside it.  Just after I got my new bike, I was traveling with some friends beside the canal.  It was a well beaten path.  Well, I was learning some new tricks on the bike.  I could ride wheelies.  I could bunny hop.  I could ride with no hands.  You know, the basic skills.  Well, that day I was practicing a new skill.  I had perfected it in fact.  I could jump off the bike and it would continue down the trail.  I would then run to it and jump back on.  Then, I started to brag.  "Hey guys, you gotta see this!"  Everyone watched with anticipation.  I pedalled faster than I ever had.  I jumped off the back of the bike and watched as it b lined into the canal.  I'm not sure if their applause was good or bad.  Now that I think about it, they may have been mocking me.  I looked like Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider.  I can still picture the yellow rim of the back tire spinning just under the surface of the water.  Of course, I went in for it.  That bike made it a few more seasons.

 

There was a ten speed added in there somewhere.  But, I don't recall any incidents with it.  Well maybe. My best friend back then and I rode our ten speeds to the local metro park.  There was a huge hill that was just paved.  You could gain some serious speed riding down it.  We hit that hill like the Tour De France.  I pulled ahead and turned around in time to see my friend had stopped and was doing some sort of Ritualistic Dance at the side of the road.  I had to investigate.  As it turns out, a bee had flown down his shirt.  I think they renamed his dance the "Soulja Boy". Good times. Oh! and the time I rode across town to visit a girl.  Her Grandpa was none to pleased.  He told her that I looked like a hoodlum.  It must have been the glasses.  It was a short visit.
 

My first taste of real freedom was my first car.  It was a '76 Firebird Formula.  Gas was affordable, even on my part time stockboy pay.  There is thrill like no other to know that you can just pick up and go. There is a new adventure around the next turn or the turn after that.  Let's see, where will the road take me today?

Fast forward to 2011.  Record high gas prices are threating my freedom and yours.  I have to plan outings so that they make sense.  I'll wait to go here until Thursday because I will be out that way already.  I've changed my driving style to maximize my MPG.  How has the gas prices affected your freedom?