The Night

From as far back as I can remember I always loved the night. To me as a kid it seemed the whole world becomes mysterious after dark. We lived in a newly built neighborhood with all young families so there were always kids around to play Hide ‘n Seek, Kick The Can or whatever other games we came up with at night. There were always kids running around and it was fun.

Early on, maybe 3^rd or 4^th grade age I went to a “sleep over” at my buddy Daryl’s house over on Cathann St. At some point that night we duct taped flashlights to the handlebars of our bikes (I would NEVER have a light installed on my bike because my motorcycle racing hero’s didn’t have lights on their racing bikes so no lights were going on my bicycle)! Then we rode our bikes over to the field where years later they would build The Treasury at Hawthorne and Sepulveda and rode around in that field. I remember that night really well because it was really cool to be riding out there! A little creepy, seemed a little risky but mostly cool.

That started an on-going habit with me of going out to those fields at night on my bicycle and racing around.

My dad worked two jobs so he was rarely home before like, 10:30 PM and that left me vulnerable to violence at home. Being the “Disappointment” in that house meant that pretty much anything could be done to me at any time. When violence was done to me after dark and I’d gotten the bleeding stopped, I’d disappear from the house on my bike and usually headed over to that field just west of The Union Bank building on Carson St. I’d leave the light off my bike on those nights because I’d become almost invisible. I liked the way that felt. Then when I got to that field I’d race up and down the trails there as fast as I could. It was exhelerating to be riding so fast on trails I couldn’t see very well plus I figured if I crashed and broke my neck, I really didn’t care.

There was a hill in that field that I could sit on top of and look out over Carson St. and the surrounding area and just think about things. On a lot of nights I’d pedal out to the back part of that field which was known locally as: Tarzan Land (I don’t remember why, but it appears in our 1976 movie: Attack of the Werewolf). There were some huge trees back in there and I would lay down under one of them and stare at the sky, sometimes for hours. I was raised in a pseudo religious family (don’t get me started) so I used to wonder why God never came to my aid in those situations? Over time however I quit giving a damn.

There were other times I’d ride over to my grade school at night and race up and down the hallways. That was pretty fun because those hallways are really slick and I could slide around all the corners.

A lot of that riding was all about thinking. I’d pedal and think. It’s amazing what you can work through in your head when it’s dark and you’re alone and your being physically active.

Years and years later after I moved here to Utah, I got into mountain biking. Utah has some incredibly good trails and I’d do the same thing when I’d ride then too. Just pedal and think.

It’s probably good for the soul…