It was very early in the summer of 1960, and he was just turning thirteen. He was also in for a bit of a name change, because the year before, the Everly Brothers released a single entitled Bird Dog, and one of his friends, who was in charge of nicknames, gave him that moniker because even at the ripe old age of thirteen, he was pretty much obsessed with the ladies.
This was something all his friends knew and because it was a small town, and like Bird’s obsession with the ladies, the nickname made the rounds and kind of stuck.
Bird was rail thin from a childhood of playing and working outside through all the available daylight hours. He had long dark brown hair and brown eyes and a patrician nose that was the result, he was told, of being half Italian.
His obsession with females wasn’t something he indulged in outwardly. But it was something he thought about constantly, as almost every kid his own age did. Of course, knowing what to do once the females were attracted was quite another matter. That was still a work in progress.
At Christmas the year before, Bird’s uncle Harold from New Jersey brought him up a Schwinn Cruiser. His uncle was the head custodian at the famous Empire State Building in New York City and told Bird the bike was something that was left in one of the offices when the tenants vacated. It wasn’t new, but it was in excellent condition and it was easily the most beautiful bike Bird had ever seen. It was Fire Engine Red with extra wide handlebars and a well-padded seat. It had a crossbar that looked like the gas tank on some of the motorcycles he had seen. And it had slightly fatter tires which his uncle assured him would make the ride as smooth as silk.
There was two feet of snow on the ground the day Bird received the bike, so he would have to wait three or four months at least before taking it out on the road. Winters in Fort Erie were usually covered with snow because of its location at the end of Lake Erie, where storms coming from both the south and west picked up lots of moisture and dumped it on Fort Erie and its neighbour across the river, Buffalo, New York.
In the meantime, Bird gathered all his summer caddying, autumn leave raking, winter snow shovelling money, as well as some money he got for Christmas and set about equipping his new treasure.
He went to his local Canadian Tire store because there was no bike shop in Fort Erie. He bought a kickstand, a pair of super comfortable foam hand grips, some lubricating oil, an all-purpose bike wrench, a wire carrier basket, which he would mount onto the flat rear carrier that the bike already had, a couple of bungee cords to keep stuff from flying out of his carrier if he should hit a bump or pothole, an inner tube repair kit and a spare inner tube in case he got an unpatchable flat, a length of chain with a good padlock that had three keys. Finally, he got a set of three strange-looking tools that would allow him to remove the tire from the rim of the wheel without damaging the inner tube. A guy named Tommy Lovell, who ran the bike department at Canadian Tire helped Bird out and gave him a lot of good advice about where to lubricate his bike to keep it running squeak-free.
Over the winter Bird spent a lot of time out in the enclosed back porch of his house cleaning, lubricating, and generally getting to know his bike. Mostly he just sat around and looked at it and thought about all the places it could take him.
On the first day that the sidewalks and roads were clear Bird, took the Schwinn out for a shakedown cruise. He stopped several times to adjust the seat and the handlebar configuration until he was completely comfortable.
True to his uncle’s promise the bike rode like a dream. But more than that, the bike was his passport to adventure. He would now be able to go anywhere he wanted in the small town of Fort Erie where he lived, quickly and easily. He could even cross over the Peace Bridge and ride around in the city of Buffalo, New York if he wanted, or head off into the countryside in any direction he chose.
Bird was a fairly ambitious young man, and realized that even at the age of thirteen, we would need to have an income stream. Because, while his parents weren’t dirt poor, there was very little money to spare for allowances.
That was alright with him because he knew his way around and earned extra money setting pins at the Iroquois Bowling Lanes downtown and later on at the Park Lane Bowling Emporium, which was out on Garrison Road and now, easily accessible via his new bike. He also kept caddied at the local country club which was up by the Queen Elizabeth Highway, And he shovelled snow, raked leaves, and did odd jobs for a number of his older neighbours.
One day, in the early summer, when it was still too cool to swim in the river, Bird, decided to test the limit of his stamina on his new bike. So he headed down to the Niagara Boulevard, the road that ran alongside the Niagara River from where the river began in the south end of the town all the way north, a good twenty miles, to a town called Chippewa, which was even smaller than Fort Erie A mile further down the river, the rushing water then dumped over the Falls, continued along through the Niagara Gorge and eventually made its way to Lake Ontario at a place called Niagara-On-The-Lake.
Bird knew all this because his dad had taken him and his younger sister and brother on car rides and picnics all along the river. Like Bird, his dad had grown up on the river and loved the whole Niagara region, which was not hard to do because it was one of the most beautiful places in the whole of Canada, or so Bird believed.
Bird set out on his endurance run early on a Saturday morning at the bottom of his street, which was called Gilmore Road and headed north. He had packed a couple of baloney sandwiches and some fruit along with his hat and a sweatshirt in case the sun was too bright or the air got cool on his way back, which he figured could be sometime in the evening.
He passed through the north end of the town, which ended at a street called Bowen Road. As he continued along, he got onto the paved walking and cycling path that ran all the way to Chippewa. As he rode he passed a virtually endless stream of beautiful houses that sat looking out at the river.
He marked his journey by the creeks he passed. There were several that fed into the river. They had names like Black Creek, Frenchman’s Creek, Boyer’s Creek and finally the Welland River. These creeks were all named after early settlers in the area, but Bird didn’t find that out until he was much older.
Bird rode along effortlessly on his great new wheels. He was surrounded by beauty because the upper part of the Niagara River which was one large park. The river side of the Parkway was a picnic area, with benches, picnic tables, and various docks that belonged to some of the people who owned the houses on the other side of the road. Bird wondered if he would ever be lucky enough to be able to afford a house like the ones he passed as he rode along. But he was only thirteen and mostly he just thought about girls and sports and unbridled joy of being able to ride his bike twenty miles from home and not feel lost.
The ride took the better part of three hours, mostly because Bird didn’t push it. He knew he needed to conserve his energy for the ride home.
When he got to Chippewa, about five hours later, he stopped at a variety store and bought himself a bottle of Orange Crush. He then crossed the Parkway and found a bench to sit on and eat his sandwiches. The river next to where he was sitting was much less peaceful looking. The water was churning and moving more quickly. Off in the distance, maybe a mile further north, he could hear the dull roar as the water cascaded over the Horseshoe Falls and he could see the perpetual fog created by the mist of all that crashing water.
Bird had read stories about people who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He might have been only thirteen but he thought that was about the stupidest thing anybody could do. All you had to do was take a good look at the water, even a mile from the Falls to realize that trying something like that was right out to lunch.
