'Redemption' by candy at Lida Hooe Elementary

I was in the 6th grade, in Dallas, Texas. We lived four blocks from the Sunset church of Christ in Oak Cliff (when Oak Cliff was still a nice place to live -- before it became a ghetto). One day when dad was at work and Mom had gone somewhere for the day, I thought it would be cool to skip school for a day. With no parental oversight, I had a grand day. Dressed in a pair of summer shorts and a t-shirt -- barefooted and free -- I decided to get on my old-timey-ugly-brown-rusty-no-handle-grips-balloon-tire bicycle and ride back and forth in the street next to the playground of my school---Lida Hooe -- my elementary school on Hampton Road. I knew when my classmates would be out on the playground, right after lunch, and I wanted to taunt my friends and make them feel like they were really missing out on the great fun I was experiencing, skipping school on such a grand day! I wanted them to suffer a little bit after seeing my apparent freedom. I rode grandly back and forth -- up and down the street on the north side of the school building, smiling and waving at my buddies (and hoping the girls were watching). Then I started doing the 'no hands' maneuver, whereby one steers the bicycle, sans hands, weaving from one side to the other like a surfer riding his board.

Suddenly, without any warning at all, the front fender on that old heavy clunker of a bicycle, dropped down over the front tire! The front of the bicycle stopped instantly, since the tire abruptly quit turning and the front of the bike stopped! The rear of the bicycle, however, went into a rear-over-front flip. Naturally, since I was perched up high on that semi-tractor seat, (which had its own set of strong springs), I was propelled over the front of the bicycle and onto the pavement. Just as you might imagine, it was another instance of 'teeth, hair and eyeballs' splattered all over the street. My bare elbows, kneecaps, hands and other body parts slammed into the hard pavement. As if this was not bad enough, the rear end of the bicycle, along with the bicycle seat, then slammed into me. I didn't have handlebars on my old bike, and one of the metal handlebar tubes drove itself into the space between the first and second knuckles on my right hand -- hard enough that I couldn't use that hand for days (and had what appeared to be a reddish blood clot between those two knuckles for years).

I picked my body up off of the pavement, to the laughter of a large number of my classmates and other hecklers, who thought that my nearly getting killed, while showing off in the street, was GREAT FUN!

By now, all my joints were getting into some serious 'synchronized bleeding'. Later on, I got 'busted' by the teachers, for skipping school, and had to stay after school every day for a long time. I also got busted with a belt that night when Dad came home. I wrecked my sole means of transportation, and made myself the laughing stock of Lida Hooe Elementary.

The ridicule went on for a long time, but I finally redeemed myself in the eyes of my classmates when I began furnishing them with a steady supply of cinnamon sticks that I would buy on the way to school (a small store next to a funeral home that I passed while walking to school each day). I loaded up my pants pockets with various articles of purchased contraband that I bought for a nickel or a dime and then re-sold at school, furtively, lest I get caught, for 3 times what I paid for them. My hottest selling item was a cinnamon stick called a 'Fire Stick.' Eventually I quit 'carrying' all the other items and focused on Fire Stick sales. The sticks were 4 or 5 inches long and about twice the thickness of a piece of chewing gum. I could pack a lot of them into my jeans pockets. I started doubling or tripling my money every day, and eventually pocketed some serious money...for a 6th grader!

The candy sales made me a 6th grade hero (others could have done it, but were afraid of getting caught -- or, they had no store in the route they had to take to get to school). I was able to make the embarrassment and ridicule from the bicycle fiasco fade away in time ---and I did it with cinnamon sticks! Redemption by candy at Lida Hooe Elementary!