Bob Thomas Writes

My Dad…
My Dad was a bicycle salesman for most of my life. He started selling Schwinn Bikes when I was in the fifth grade. Before that time he sold furniture, insurance, theater advertising, he was a short order cook, owned a restaurant, worked on the dinning car for Southern Railroad, drove a city bus, worked as the weatherman at the airport and did a lot of other things that I’m sure I don’t know about. But, the man I remember was a bicycle salesman.
When you’re 10 or 11 years old and your Dad sells Schwinn bikes, you’re very popular with your friends ! Dad would always have a car full of bike accessories. . . things like horns, handlebar streamers, lights, reflectors and best of all . . . “Hula Dolls” ! They were little dolls in grass skirts that bolted to your handlebars. They were mounted on a spring and when you rode your bike they would “Hula” !

The Christmas of 1953 I awoke to find a “Schwinn Black Phantom” bike under the tree!
It was the ultimate bicycle. . .today they are reproduced by Schwinn for over $3000.00 each ! The Black Phantom had chrome fenders, a black, red and chrome tank with a horn. A luggage rack, taillights with turn signals, white sidewall tires, a (real) leather seat, cushion grips, a spring action front fork, a headlight on the front fender and mine had a three speed rear wheel ! The frame was painted black and red and there was a big red battery powered tail light with turn signals on the rear fender. In addition to the “standard” bike, I had “crash bars” on the front wheel ! They were just like the ones on a Harley Davidson Motorcycle. I was so happy I couldn’t speak ! A high pitched gurgle was the only sound I could make for several hours that Christmas Morning! I spent the whole day riding that bike around the neighborhood. I was at the age when Santa was a remote possibility…I knew that my Dad had given me that bike. . . and I told everyone. “My Dad gave me this for Christmas.” My neighbor, Butch, also got a new bike for Christmas …it was a J.C. Higgens from Sears and it was yellow and green or some other puke color. It may of had some chrome on it, I’m not sure…but, I do know one thing, it was not a “Phantom”….would never be a “Phantom”….and would never look as good as my “Phantom”. My Black Phantom was the only one I ever saw in Charlotte….I’m sure there were others, but, I never saw them ! As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen another one in my life except for mine and a few in books and catalogs in recent years.

I rode that bike everywhere for years. . .until I was about 15 years old and started learning to drive. After that I don’t know what happened to it…I swear, I have no idea if my Dad gave it away or it was lost or stolen or whatever….But, I wish I still had it.

In that same period of years. I would travel with my Dad in the summer on his trips through the Carolinas and Georgia to call on bicycle dealers. I thought it was a wonderful way to make a living. You got to go to all of those little shops that sold and serviced bikes and lawn mowers and they always had wonderful stuff in them. Some of them sold guns, sporting goods and toys. But, the best one to visit was “Greenways” in Fayetteville, N.C. “Greenways” was a bicycle, appliance, lawn mower and MOTORCYCLE dealer ! While my Dad did business I got to wander the store and sit on Harley Davidson Motorcycles. A Harley was almost as nice as my Phantom and was…I was sure…the next logical gift for a man to buy his Son. Alas, I was never to have a motorcycle. My Dad had one when he was younger, and he was convinced that He was alive only by the grace of God! I used to listen to my Dad and his friends talk about their escapades in their youth. I particularly like the story about how he once rode a motorcycle between two streetcars. They were closer together that the width of his handlebars and he nearly scraped his knuckles off! And he told one about two race car drivers named Tim and Fonty Flock. They would “test” their helmets by driving down Trade Street in Charlotte with their head hanging out of the car window and drag their helmet on the pavement to see if they it really worked as advertised! Helmets were metal then, and the sparks would fly. They usually quit when their hair caught on fire!

My Dad loved stock car races. The old kind, when you drove to the race, raced, and drove home in the same car! We would go to the fair grounds on Saturday night with a friend and his two kids to see the races. Since we couldn’t afford to buy a ticket, we would climb the pine trees around the track and watch from there! I always felt sorry for the people sitting in the stands. . . they just sat there and watched! I, on the other hand, got to watch and hang on for dear life at the same time! I only fell out of the tree once or twice, to the sound of Daddys voice shouting, “Bobby, if you can’t hold on, go sit in the car!” After the race, we would get into the pits to look at the cars. We could walk around in the pits, climb in the cars and talk to the drivers back then. I always envied the kids whose Dads were race car drivers, and I would try to strike up a conversation with them, usually by saying something like, “My Dads thinking about racing next week if Mother lets him have the car!” They were usually polite and would answer questions about their Dads cars. I think back now to those days and I’m amazed that I used to hang around with the likes of Lee petty and his son Richard, now referred to as “King Richard”, Buck Baker and his son Buddy, Fireball Roberts, Tiny Lund, Cutis Turner…he started the world 600 track in Charlotte I believe. . . now called the Charlotte Motor Speedway… Of course, I don’t expect “King Richard” remembers me any more than he does the thousands of other kids that were crowding around him and his family…but, I consider myself a close personal friend of his!
I once saw Tiny Lund intentionally drive his car into the side of Fireball Roberts. Fireball was sliding sideways and about to start rolling over, so Tiny “T”-boned him to keep his car from rolling. At the time I thought it was the greatest sacrifice I had ever seen a person make for another…To intentionally wreck your own car to save a friend! After the race, Fireball tried to show Tiny his gratitude by beating the stuffing out of him! Wow, race car drivers really were the Super Heros of that time! Later, I discovered that several of them were bootleggers during the week and racers on Saturday night! But, I thought that was great! Bootleggers were the other Super hero of that time!

Anyway, back to my Dad.

He managed to be the greatest guy in my life for many years. He could drink an awful lot of hard liquor without falling down. He drove fast. He could make the car slide sideways. He smoked. He cussed. And he told funny, and dirty, jokes. Everybody loved to see him coming. He always prefaced his every action with the warning, “Bobby, if I ever catch you (doing/saying/drinking) this, I’ll whip your butt!” So, I learned right from wrong early on in my life.

For some reason, as I got older, I became ashamed of him and his actions. He wasn’t cool anymore. I didn’t know at the time that my friends Dads were doing the same, or similar things. I only knew that I couldn’t bear the thought of him showing up drunk in front of my friends. . . or worse yet, my girlfriend!
So, I started to draw away from him. When he asked me if I wanted to go with him, to call on his bicycle dealers in town, on a Saturday morning. I would make up an excuse not to go. After awhile he quit asking me. I don’t know if it was a conscious decision on his part or not, but I suspect he figured out that I would probably never go with him again. As it turns out, it’s taken me over 40 years to realize the sadness of that day.

I always regretted that my Dad never had an opportunity to see me play football or basketball. I wasn’t that good. But in the small schools that I went to, I was one of the best! I was All Conference, but in a conference with only 5 schools that played 8 man ball, it wasn’t a major achievement!
But, I thought it was at the time!

Years later, as I visited my Dad in the hospital prior to his first carotid artery surgeries, (he died after the second operation a few months later) I said something about his missing my football playing days. He surprised me by saying, “I saw 3 or 4 games”! I almost didn’t believe him. I went to a small boarding school that was about two hours from home. . . and we played schools that were in remote places, usually another hour or two away. But, he told me about the games…the little details that only a spectator, or a Dad, would notice. A particular play, or a tackle that I was a part of. . . 10 years later! He would drive from his last call in Georgia or some other part of the South, to Western North Carolina…arrive after the game started…watch the game…and drive 4 or 5 hours home on Friday night. He said he never told me about it because he just never thought about it! I would finish playing, get on the bus and leave and, although he tried once, he didn’t take the time to come find me after the game. He even saw me dislocate my knee in a game! He said he talked to the coach after they hauled me off in the ambulance and found out I was O.K. He didn’t say anything about it because I never told him or Mom about it, so, he assumed I didn’t want him to know about it. I didn’t want them to make me stop playing!
He told me that he thought I was “pretty good.”

“Pretty good”! Those two words sounded like, “Olympic Gold Medal Winner”, to me.

My Dad thought I was “Pretty Good”!

Life has a way of kissing you right on the lips when you least expect it.

Some days I miss my Dad so much. . . I wish he was around so I could tell him that I love him. And, I want to show him what I’ve done with my life…the life that he gave me. I guess I would probably skip the bad parts, but I sure would like to show him the good stuff! It’s important to me that he could be proud of me. It’s important that he knows that I haven’t disgraced the family name or given him cause to be ashamed of me. I really loved him. . . and I’m proud of him. I hope he knows. They say that he’s able to look down from heaven and see me. . . I hope they’re right.

It’s interesting to me that feelings like this never occurred to me until I had a son. Now I understand the tears he shed for me. I understand the pride he felt when we both worked for the same company. . . and I won awards that he had “owned” for many years. Now I understand why he called all of my customers to make sure I was doing a good job when I worked for Schwinn Bicycle Company. He didn’t care that much about what kind of job I was doing! He just wanted to hear them say how good I was! And he wanted to hear them say, “You sure trained him right, Bill! He’s going to knock you off your throne”! My Dad was the best. . . THE BEST!. . . salesman that Schwinn ever had! And I couldn’t claim that throne if my life depended on it!

For the few years that I traveled for Schwinn Bike Co. I did the same job that he had been doing for over 20 years. I found out what it was like to wake up in a motel and not know where you were in the morning. I found out what it was like to be sick with a cold or the flu…and be by yourself. I found out what it was like to just want to go home today.
I smiled and joked with unbearable people. I bought dinner for people I didn’t like. I sat in motel dinning rooms big enough for 500 people, by myself, and ate bad food. I hit the road at 5 A.M. and drove 200 miles before breakfast. I ate crackers and cokes in my car to save time. And, most vivid in my memory, I arrived home late on Friday night and drug myself out of the car, unpacked my bags, ate a sandwich and went to bed. Only to call on dealers all day on Saturday. And then start over again on Sunday afternoon or Monday Morning. There were days I would get in the car and sit there for 10 minutes thinking, “I can’t do this anymore.” Then I would start the car and head for the first customer. . . again.

In short, I found out what a tremendous sacrifice he had made for us.

He spread his life over a million miles of pot-holed, southern blacktop highways. Listening to his tires etch a trail in melting tar patches, one sun burned arm propped on the window of dozens of un-air conditioned cars, just so his family could live comfortably. So we could be proud of him.

And we didn’t even give him that courtesy.

Since he died, over 40 years ago, I have tried to never say an unkind word about him. . . Oh, I’ve made jokes about his drinking and his wild driving abilities. But, I tried to do it with some ‘warped’ sense of respect. I do truly admire him….he made mistakes in his life…but, no worse than I’ve made in mine. And I think I’m a pretty good guy. . . most of the time. But, when people see the good side of me, they don’t realize who they are looking at…
They are seeing a little bit of me. . .
. . . and a whole lot of William E. Thomas, Sr.
My Dad.