When I was 8 I wanted a bike. I can't remember if it was for my birthday or Christmas but Dad bought me a Rollfast bike. It was green. I must have ridden at least 100 miles on it during the next 8 years. By the time I was 15 or 16, it definitely as NOT cool to ride a bike so it went in the garage and who knows what happened to it.

There's a very good chance that Peter's mother sewed that shirt - she made most of her own clothes, including the dress she wore at our wedding.

I arrived on the hallowed shores of the US that same year and was about the same age as Peter. After spending the previous 5 years going to school in a grey shirt and grey shorts, the wildly colored and paisley patterned shirts that I would now be required to wear to school pretty much freaked me out for a few months until I got used to them.

This young man is seriously stylin' with the new bike and the Rin Tin Tin belt buckle.

I cringe when I think of all the bikes that I destroyed as a kid. We all thought that the fancy stuff was for sissies and girls. Fenders, racks, bells, bags, lights all went into the junk pile. All the stuff that a restorer pays a premium for today.

I look at that bike now and think "It's cooool, maaaan."
But I know my 12-year-old 10-speed riding self would vehemently disagree. "Ugh, those handle bars.", she would say, turning up her nose.

Would be fashionable today, even.

Living in the coal mining town I grew up in in the 50's and 60's.
A bicycle that nice would get you beat up everyday. Nobody had that kind money to buy one.