The rule in our house was ONE tricycle and ONE bicycle. You could only have a bicycle when you were 12. I desperately wanted a real bicycle, so I began riding my oversized tricycle on two wheels. I just tipped it and balanced it and rode it just like a two wheeler. The only time the third wheel hit the ground was when I stopped. I could turn completely around at the end of the road on two wheels. Did I get my bike early? Are you kidding?!?!?!? Rules are rules....imagine all the kids in the neighborhood having real bicycles and when I'm 10 and 11 I'm still riding a tricycle, but even embarrassed I couldn't give up riding. The Christmas after my twelfth birthday I got a JC Higgins Sears bike. I kept that bike well into my 20s.

We have 8mm movies of my riding the tricycle. Looking at those now, I imagine the neighbors got a real kick out of the weird kid riding like a circus act.