I wrote this for my hometown FB group and it was so well received they said I should share it further, and, well, you's my peeps.

When I was growing up my favorite place, by far, was the bike store across the street from Baskin-Robbins. From the moment you entered Jules Bike Shop - through the service entrance in the back, natch - you could smell the newness. The fresh rubber, the well oiled chains and pristine paint all shouted a message that this was a constantly rotating inventory, confirmed by regular observations.

I can remember the build up of anticipation as I climbed the short set of stairs that led from the dirt parking lot, passing over the wooden floor in the back area where they assembled and repaired the bikes into the showroom where the latest offerings would be revealed.

Most of all I loved the actual process of buying a bike. Not the final transaction mind you, but the days and weeks leading up to that decision. I loved the serious contemplation involved in spending what to me was a significant sum. I remember when inflation pushed the cost of the low end 10 speeds over $100. My last bike would cost $115, a red Kabuki, and I agonized over the final $15 which in the end didn't make my mother blink.

The purchase of my first bike, or at least the first bike I had that wasn't a hand me down from my sisters, was a 3 speed on a smaller crossbar frame which was close enough to a real 10 speed as to placate the desires of a kid as well as the concerns of a parent wishing to adhere to Mr. Comen's rule that I should be able to comfortably stand flat footed on the ground. The mock 10 speed was a bit of a humbling compromise, assuaged by my best friend Ramsay who had the exact same bike despite having recently won the highly coveted grand prize 10 speed in our schools annual 'Big Pumpkin' raffle, but whose mother also agreed with Jules' owner and so he had been similarly hobbled.

There was something indescribable about the rows of bikes, arranged in ascending height and cost, each with a price hand written on a manilla tag tied to the handlebars with a red string that passed through the reinforced hole, made fast by a double half-hitch.

In a way Jules was a bit like a mile marker showing the passage of time, tied so closely to the things I would be using my bike to do - tennis lessons at the Tenbroek's, swimming lessons at the Kelley's, sailing lessons at the beach club, and most of all trekking back and forth to school where they seemed just as intent on creating amazing memories as they were in providing an exceptional education.

I was in Dick's Sporting Goods the other day and passed by the bicycle section. Seeing and smelling the row of bikes sent me back to Jules shop so vividly that 1977 seemed not so far away.