WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN.

 I remember a very happy and memorable experience when I was halfway through my seventeenth year.  It was a sunny August morning in 1938 and the temperature was pushing 70 degrees.  If you were in downtown Victoria on such a day you might have fancied an ice cream cone in Terry's at Fort and Douglas, for five cents.  

Back then two pounds of seedless grapes were 17 cents, the same price as a pound of coffee.  Butter was three pounds for 85 cents.  A leg of lamb was 25 cents a pound, and for just 65 cents you could buy 10 pounds of white sugar.

Movies in town were SON OF THE SHEIK with Rudolph Valentino; FAST COMPANY starred Melvyn Douglas.  James Stewart was in SHOPWORN ANGEL.  I liked Westerns in those days, as most kids did.  Bill Boyd was in PRIDE OF THE WEST.  Before 1 p.m. you could see any of them for a dime.

The news bulletins stuck on the TIMES windows on Broad Street, told of unrest in Europe.  Come September Neville Chamberlain and his umbrella would be returning to London from Munich with "peace in our time." [see 1938 newspapers]

None of those things caused me any concern back in 1938, for I was only 17 and for the price of a cord of millwood, $2.50, I had bought a ticket to Seattle. 

  My priorities were to change dramatically in the next year or so, but on this warm summer day in my youth I was obsessed with an idea. Two friends, Tom Ellis and Bill Court, were sharing it with me and the three of us wheeled our bikes on to the Princess Joan tied at the wharf in Victoria's beautiful Inner Harbor.  The three of us were going to ride south on Highway 99 as far as two weeks and our young legs would allow.  Bill was a bike racer in Victoria and had the most riding experience.  I had pedalled many miles on my TIMES paper route, and with all of my sports activities considered myself physically fit.  Tom rode more for pleasure.

After our bikes had been stowed below decks we came up and leaned on the ship's sun-warmed rail and stared across the water at the Empress Hotel.  The #3 streetcar was rattling its way across the causeway into town from Beacon Hill Park.

Through my dad, I knew the sports writer of the Victoria Daily Times, at that time, Pete Sallaway.  He had bet us we couldn't ride to San Francisco and back in two weeks.  Foolishly, we thought we could.  About that time Victoria's world-famous six-day bike racer, Torchy  Peden was in town to see Pete.  Pete told him of our planned trip.  His advice to us was to drink at least a quart of milk a day, with  some starchy foods from a bakery.  And to eat a substantial evening meal.  We wouldn't lose weight but we would burn off all of those calories.

The Princess Joan's deep blast heralding the 11 a.m. departure resounded across the harbor startling many seagulls from nearby perches.  They followed the ship's wake, soaring gracefully, always the melancholy screech, but ever-watching, and suddenly diving for morsels tossed from a porthole.

We arrived in Seattle about 4 p.m. It took an hour and a half going through Customs.  It seemed to us that just because we were youths with bikes, we could wait. We kept trying to get some attention, when one of the uniformed men said, "What's your rush, boys, you've got all summer."  With his slow, dry wit Tom Ellis replied: "Yes, but we don't intend to spend it on the Seattle docks."

We stayed the night with Tom's aunt.  The next morning in a drizzle of rain, we rode our bikes out of the quiet Seattle suburb in search of Highway 99 and the beginning of our adventure. 

As time passed the sun came out and the start of our journey looked much brighter.  It was Sunday and traffic was quite heavy.  We rode single file and very close to the edge of the road.  We passed the Boeing Airport [Seattle/Tacoma],on our way out.  Big trucks almost sucked us into their sides when they swished by.

In 1938 the old 99 was quite rural [just a single road], compared with today's very fast and "get there" No. 5 [or I-5 as they call it]. 

It was a very common sight in those days to see dead on the highway:  cats, rats, skunk, pheasant, rabbit and many unrecognizable blobs that had lost the race with the dreaded automobile; some quite fresh and some like dried parchment.

Two hours and 33 miles later we arrived in Tacoma a city of about 103,000 in those days.  Our first lap was completed and we were hungry.  We found a local bakery and bought some fresh buns and remembering what Torchy Peden had said we each had a quart of milk.  

We seemed to be a novelty and everyone asked us where we were going.  Strangely enough Torchy Peden was also on the highway at this time pushing his bike through the State of Washington.  

The Daily Colonist of August 26, 1938, reported with an Olympia, Washington, dateline:

"Torchy Peden, champion six-day bike rider from Victoria, who is making a cycling tour of the Olympic Peninsula arrived here at 3:30 p.m. today exactly on schedule.  Making the trip primarily as training for coming races in the east, Peden said he would continue to Tacoma tomorrow and to Seattle Saturday."

We spent our first night sleeping under the stars in a free camping ground.  We were travelling very light with one blanket each.  

No sleeping bags for us in those days.  

We three lay together on one blanket, with two blankets over us.  We had covered 76 miles the first day and slept well.  In the morning we washed at a tap by the side of the road and then went into Tenino for breakfast.

On the next leg of our journey we left behind us small towns like Chehalis, Castle Rock and Kelso.  Just after leaving Kelso we read in the paper that three bandits had robbed a bank while we were there and had escaped going south.  We hoped they, too, weren't riding bicycles.

On the outskirts of Kalama we decided to spend our second night amongst a dense grove of trees about 100 feet from the highway.  From a tree branch we hung our flashlight, sat cross- legged under its five-cell beam and wrote our first postcards home. Later, with the light doused, we lay under the trees, the black night about us and dozed off to sleep watching the big trucks and buses whiz by, pretty red and amber side-lights fading in the distance.  Suddenly we were startled awake, the earth shook beneath us, and not 20 feet away a great long train consisting of 63 freight cars [after we started counting], rumbled and rattled out of the forest.  Unknowingly we had camped next to the railway tracks. The disappearing train left a great silence, broken only by the distant barking of a disturbed dog, and periodic hum of highway traffic. There was a one-pump gas station and house about 100 yards away and the owner's unsettled cats with their mating songs succeeded in breaking our fitful sleep throughout the rest of the night.

By noon of our third day we crossed the Interstate Bridge at Vancouver, Washington, the popular Jantzen Beach Resort playground, and into Portland, Oregon.  We didn't realize when we passed Jantzen Beach what lay in store for us there on our homeward journey.

Soon Oregon City, New Era, Cranby, Aurora and Woodburn were behind us.  Driving a car today you would never remember little towns like that.  The best outdoor accommodation we could find on our third night happened to be a cemetery.  At least the grass was nice and clean and the ground soft and even.  However, there are always disadvantages to the best of accommodation, and at one point in the evening a family of rats out foraging decided to look us over.  I don't know how many times they had crossed over us and through our blankets before we finally awakened. When we did jump up with a start, blankets flying, it was to stay awake for the rest of the night. 

I have always remembered Oregon's capital city Salem, as a nice little town I could live in one day, with its beautiful tree-lined streets.  The immaculate green boulevards and white picket-fenced suburbia coming right out of an Andy Hardy movie. 

I could visualize Andy Hardy [Mickey Rooney] vaulting the white pickets to greet Polly Benedict [Anne Rutherford].

In Salem we washed the night's sand from our eyes in the washroom of a Signal Gas Station.  A Salem policeman showed us the Chamber of Commerce, gave us some good road maps, and wished us well as we left for Jefferson and finally Albany, Oregon for lunch.

I remember Albany, Oregon, for two very good reasons. First, for its straight and level 26- mile stretch of highway, like an airport runway, from Jefferson to Albany.  What a treat for our weary bodies.  I think we even had the wind at our backs.  The second reason; it was here I met my Uncle Bill. [Remember Uncle Bill, early in this story?]  He was driving from Los Angeles to Victoria to meet my dad [his brother], whom he hadn't seen for 20 years.  He and his wife Francis knew of our trip south and were on the lookout for us.  My uncle had a special sign on the front of his car which could be seen a long ways off, so we kept our eyes peeled.  He in turn knew he was looking for three young chaps on bicycles.  We stopped in Albany at the Linger Longer Lunch [only in America] and left our bikes leaning against the front of the cafe.  The lady who ran this family cafe was very nice to us.  We had pie for 5 cents instead of 10 cents; milk for half price, and she gave us some cake without charge.  "It'll give you boys some energy," she said.  I recall this lady had a nice green lawn out back of her store and we sat out there enjoying our lunch in the shade of some fruit trees. Tom and Bill had finished eating and had gone to sit in the sun in front of the store. [I have always been a slow eater].  Suddenly Bill came running in calling: "Your uncle's here.  Your uncle's here!"  I can still see my uncle as I did then for the first time.  He was a tall, slim, handsome guy in a leather jacket and smoking a pipe.  He looked like a movie star.  It was my aunt who had spotted our bikes and had called out, "Billie, I think it's  the boys!"  Highway 99 in those days went right past the cafe.  It was a wonderful experience to meet them and record the meeting  in front of the Linger Longer Lunch before they left to meet my mom and dad in Port Angeles, Washington.

After Albany, Oregon, we passed through Tangent, Shedd, Halsey, and Folk, but not without mishap.  

Usually we rode line astern.   We must have been talking or something, making plans, as we were bunched up pretty tight and suddenly a front wheel of one bike somehow hooked into the back wheel of another and Bill Court lost six spokes from the front wheel of his racing bike.  

The tension of the spokes, now uneven, caused the wheel to buckle. This meant a long lay-over to straighten the buckled wheel and put in new spokes.  Our trip ended just as we were to cross the border to California.  We had been doing well to this point.  There was nothing we could do about it. Once the bike was fixed we looked at all of our options and because Bill was interested in some bike races that were to take place out of Portland, we decided to turnaround and head back.  

On our way home we passed through Salem again about the same time as the Gilmore Circus. Their huge trucks were lined up on the side of the highway outside a Gilmore Gas Station, while the drivers had a lunch break. They contained open-sided cages and I still recall the sight of my first live lion, four years old, 600 pounds, and not six feet from me. There used to be a slogan in those days connected with Gilmore Gas  [something on the order of put a Tiger in your tank], only it was, "Roar With Gilmore."  At a restaurant here we had a lesson in mathematics. 

 A large sign read: "Doughnuts - two for a nickel, three for a dime."  We wondered how many customers had been caught.  There were three of us and we almost fell for it.

When we arrived in Portland the sun was setting and we thought it time to treat ourselves to a good night's rest and so stayed in a motel or auto court as they were called back then.  It wasn't too lavish, but it had a shower and a wood stove.  Bill rode into town and got a quart of ice cream for 29 cents.  By the time he returned on this hot August day it was like thick milk.   Our next problem was what to put the ice cream in and what to eat it with.  We took some kindling from the woodbox and carved little spoons.  The three of us huddled around the now soggy container and slurped our dripping delight.  

Bill told us he had heard more about the bike race to be held at Jantzen Beach the next morning at 10:30.  In 1938 Jantzen Beach was a million-dollar playground.  A sort of Disneyland of its time.  A young person's delight.

Saturday morning we entered the park and saw a fifth of a mile of gravel midget auto track on which the bike races were to be held.  

The race Bill had heard about was an annual affair sponsored by the Portland News Telegram who supplied some handsome prizes for those days.  The winner of the 30-lap six-mile race would receive a brand new Worlds bicycle.   There were many entries and so they ran several two-lap heats.  In the final there were 48 entrants.  Bill looked so good in his heat that the officials claimed he must be a professional.  He would have to take a five-lap handicap and should he win would not be eligible for the grand prize.  They said instead they would make a special presentation.  We had just finished riding nearly 500 miles in six days, so Bill was tired.  However, with us cheering him on, he overcame the handicap and won by a clear margin.  We were ecstatic and more so after the officials gave all three of us free passes for everything in the park. We felt like celebrities.  Everywhere we went we could overhear people say, "There's those guys from Canada." [seems corny today]

Bill's special presentation was mailed to his home weeks later.  It was a handsome shield- shaped medal bearing the crest of the League of American Wheelmen.  He was lauded in the Portland papers, noting:

"He demonstrated Canadians are real sports by riding in the final after being told he couldn't claim any of the prizes if he won."

Home again we rode from the steamer over the old wooden wharf on to Belleville Street and past Queen Victoria's monument.  We had 750 miles on our wheels, holes in the seats of our pants and a diary full of memories. We had each taken $30 with us and pooled our resources and I still came home with $2 in my pocket.  But that was a sunny August in 1938, when I was seventeen.