Flathead Lake Lodge

By Doug Averill

Everyone has a story about their first bicycle, so I thought I should tell mine.

I was probably eight years old and always wanted a bicycle. I had my first horse before I was eight years old. Our father, growing up on a ranch, felt that we should use horses and not bicycles. We pretty much rode horses as we wanted to around the Averill Ranch and Bigfork. It was always fun.

We’d ride horses through town and up to the school and watch the football game on Saturday. We’d tie them up near the game. Some of the other kids in town would do as well. Not kids in town, but the country kids from ranches surrounding the town.

I wanted to acquire a bicycle. My father said, “Well, you’ll have to earn the money to buy one”. I don’t know what they cost back then, probably less than $25 dollars at Sears, Roebuck and Company.

My way of raising money was back then we used what’s called Green Stamps. When you go to the store to buy groceries, you would get this roll of stamps. They were green and they were much like a postage stamp. You had little paper books that you would stick the stamps on the pages. To fill a book was worth so much money! It took quite a lot to fill enough books to buy a bicycle. Probably took six or eight months of Green Stamps.

I finally acquired my first bicycle, and it came on a Saturday. We were going to go into town to the football game. My brother, Darv, rode his horse. We went down through town, and we were climbing up the hill downtown on Main Street headed up towards the school. I was pedaling up the hill and back then they had no gears. I was standing up and trying to pedal my bike up the hill. Darv was riding his horse, and he threw me his lariat (rope). We put it around the handlebars, and he proceeded to pull me up the hill with his horse at a gallop.

All of a sudden, he took off at a dead run and we were moving faster than I wanted. I hollered to “please slow down”. I was getting a little afraid that I was going too fast on my new bike. As he slowed down on the horse, the rope hit the ground. I overran the slack on the rope and hollered to “speed up” to take the slack up. The rope circled up under my front tire and when he took off it hit the end and flipped me off my bike and trashed the bicycle. I went sliding down the gravel. I went skidding down the road and it destroyed my bicycle. I was all scuffed on my face and arms.

I was more concerned about my bicycle that I’d saved Green Stamps forever to buy. My bike was all mangled up and twisted. The front axle broke on it where the wheel attached.

I was pretty upset and I don’t get upset. I don’t know that I ever raised money or stamps for another bicycle. I think I went back to horses after that.