Remembering The Green Monster

For something so important in my life, it seems hard to believe. I don’t have a single photograph; I don’t know the year it was made or even how I acquired it. But I sure remember my Schwinn Typhoon bicycle.

The green monster as it came to be known was actually my third bicycle but it was the first one I bought with my own money. Using $50 I had received as a confirmation gift, I bought a used green Typhoon from some guy whose kid left for college. It was probably the first “big” purchase I’d ever made.

In car terms, the Schwinn Typhoon was more like a Pontiac while the Roadmaster was more like a Cadillac. Kids that had Tuffy bikes in the 60’s probably drove Plymouths later in life.
Anyway, my bike was a shiny green cruiser with wide chrome fenders, a headlight, fat tires and dual baskets in the rear.

I imagined delivering newspapers or carrying groceries in those big baskets like the kids in the commercials. Instead, they were usually full of baseballs, gloves and bats. Friends also found them useful for hitching rides straddling the rear fender with feet in the baskets.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the green monster changed my life. I could ride across town to visit friends and cruise the park for a pick up ball game. By seventh grade I was also cruising the park for a different reason but that’s a column for another day.

My friend Gary had a black version of the same bicycle and we would take road trips during the summer to exotic locations like Nutley and Montclair (NJ). Our favorite trip that was repeated often led to Garrett Mountain in Clifton. Including a stop at the candy store and a picnic lunch, it took most of the day to get there and back. We figured it was about 20 miles away but MapQuest says it is exactly 4.8 miles one way. The route must have gotten shorter since we were kids.

The green monster was no sports car but its wide tires and heavy frame made it a breeze to drive. It could be easily ridden with a basketball under one arm and even with no hands when necessary. The bike and I also survived a collision with a car (Don’t Tell Mom I Got Hit By a Car, 4-24-08). Luckily I wasn’t riding one of those modern Stingray models.

Somewhere around eighth grade, Gary and I stripped our bikes down to resemble dirt bikes which were just becoming popular. We pulled off the fenders and baskets and gave them new paint jobs. Our reward was a back full of mud every time it rained but at least they didn’t rattle as they rolled down the street.

With a driving age of 17, bicycles were an acceptable form of transportation through most of high school but the old Schwinn had become uncool. I bought a used English racer bike in 10th grade and retired the green monster.

According to Schwinn’s corporate history, over a million bicycles a year were being produced in the 1960’s but only one was called the green monster.

What Are The Odds Part 2

When we left the New Jersey vacationers last week, they were recovering from a 3 a.m. arrival and the river outside the hotel was rising from 10” of rain.

Despite the weather, my son John, his friend Pierse and I drove 13 miles into Manhattan to attend the Big East Basketball Finals between Georgetown and West Virginia. The odds favored the Mountaineers 3-2 which matched the odds of being blown off Route 3 with 60 mph gusts of wind.
As locals will tell you, the odds of driving straight into New York City through the Lincoln Tunnel without stopping are slim to none but there we were cruising into the Port Authority parking lot feeling very smug.

We caught the subway to Penn Station which is conveniently located below Madison Square Garden and were smug once more that we had avoided the driving rain (hold that thought).
Following a great game, we discovered that the subways were shut down due to power outages caused by flooding. We were less smug as we walked 6 blocks against the cross town winds in the rain.

Meanwhile back in the swamps of Jersey, the busy Route 3 was closed due to downed power lines. We worked our way around that problem and headed back to the hotel – the one with the rising river. What are the odds that our evening was not over yet?

As we reached the crest of a long hill that leads into Little Falls (NJ), we noticed that the stores, diners and yes, hotel, was completely dark. The storm had knocked out power almost everywhere. Power is not a necessity when heading to bed late a night.

It was about 1:30 a.m. when I heard shouting in the parking lot 4 stories below. The odds of a fight breaking out between drunken wedding revelers may be 25 – 1. But even Jimmy the Greek would have a hard time predicting a fight between members of the same wedding party during a blackout in the rain. It made for great late night theater if we could see beyond the headlights of the wedding party van and the police lights.

I could only assume that the “Welcome DeRocco Wedding” sign I saw the next morning was placed in the foyer when the DeRocco’s were still on speaking terms.

The odds of the nearby Willowbrook Mall being closed outside of major holidays are 1000 – 1 but there it was, surrounded by the Passaic River up to aisle B-4. The entrance ramps were under water. We heard it made national news that day but we, of course, did not have electricity.
The rain continued as we waited in line outside the Ed Sullivan Theater on Monday. The odds of being chosen for the front rows at Letterman diminished with age and fashion sense. Those people with “the look” got numbered tickets while we were placed out of the camera’s view upstairs. The odds of Jennifer Aniston being Letterman’s guest were at least 300 – 1 but there she was clowning with Dave.

Our final shot at beating the odds came when we heard that the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) basketball pairings had Texas Tech playing in Newark (NJ) against Seton Hall the next night. The odds of two future Tech students being in Newark for the game were probably 3000 – 1 but there they were proudly wearing their Red Raider shirts and cheering with the other 22 fans who made the trip. Coach Pat Knight personally thanked them after the win because he couldn’t figure the odds of 22 people from Lubbock making it to Newark with one day’s notice.

The odds of the sun breaking out as our plane flew away were even because for once, it just what we expected to happen.