When I was about 10 years old, construction on a new shopping center began, just a half block from our home in San Jose. The orchard at the end of our street was about to become the first major retail center not located downtown. Macy’s was moving in….along with 39 other retail stores and eateries. This would begin a boom in west San Jose and mark the decline of the downtown shopping that took place during the 60s and 70s, although downtown revitalization starting the 80s revamped the downtown area.
But this piece isn’t about the economic booms and busts of my home town. This is about boys, bikes and mounds of dirt!
When the prune orchard at the end of Monroe Street began to disappear, we boys of the neighborhood were fascinated. Every day we would ride our bikes up to the end of the street and watch the progress. The huge piles of trees parts gave way to huge fires burning the trees to ash, and we were captivated. That hasn’t changed with boys and burning brush – I notice my own grandchildren and the Fire in the Pasture at Aunt Heidi’s years later. But after a few weeks, the fires were gone and the big earth movers arrived on site. They pushed dirt from one place to another. One of the features of the center and Macy’s was the underground delivery areas and the basement shopping that was part of the center. This required huge ‘holes’ to be dug and large piles of dirt. It was those piles of dirt that became the focal point of the existence of the neighborhood boys.
Work was pretty much over for the day by the time we all were finished with our dinner. The evenings were warm and long in the summer of 1955 in San Jose. And no construction was taking place on Sunday. So we had the place to ourselves. To a 10 year old boy, the piles of dirt were huge and were captivating. One thing we noticed very quickly was the bulldozers always had a trail to the top of the mound, or hill, as we always called it. We would ride our bikes up as far as we could, then would push our bikes up to the top. Then we would ride back down to the bottom, as fast as we could. At first it was a straight shot up and back down. But everyday was different, and sometimes there were turns … a challenge in soft dirt! We had a ball! I think the biggest challenge to that point was for our mom’s to wash those dirty Levi’s we always came home in!
Soon, however, it became boring just riding up and down the hill on the trail. So we “invented” cross country downhill’s. (BMX – what’s that?) The trail up was no longer the way down. We would get to one side of the top of the hill and get going as fast as we could and ride down wherever we hit the side. This was great and the danger made it all the more fun. Sometimes we made it all the way down riding, and sometimes we wiped out. Once we were at the bottom and had our bike back in hand, back up the hill to do it again!
Today, when I see those construction sites with fences around them and security guards on their patrols, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps we boys in 1955 had something to do with tighter security on those sites. We didn’t have fancy safety equipment of the new generation of BMX bikes – no we were just boys without helmets or pads on Schwinn Cruisers and 3 speed “racers” racing up and down hills of dirt in the evenings and Sunday afternoons – memories this boy still carries with him.
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