World Record: A Two-Wheeled Attempt at Immortality

My Aunt and Uncle's house in Wildwood Crest was situated at the Corner of Sweet Briar and Pacific Avenues, just a short walk from the Philip Baker School on Aster Road. This location made it convenient for my cousins, yours truly, and our friends to sneak over there once in a while to eat a homemade lunch. On one day in particular, in the spring of the year around 1969 if my memory is correct, six of us showed up to enjoy some sandwiches prepared by my Aunt during our lunch hour. When the time came for us to depart for our afternoon session we all stood around in her driveway and decided that none of us felt like walking back to the school, even though it was only three blocks away and our legs only had an average of twelve year's worth of tread worn down at that time

To our great fortune, a bicycle was spotted leaning up against a wall and someone came up with the idea of the six of us riding it back to Philip Baker.

"How can we all fit on one bike?" one of us questioned.

"I don't know," said another, "but if we do manage to all fit, do you think that it would be a world record?"

"For the most people to ever ride a twowheeled bike?"

Yes," I exclaimed, "it has to be! We can ride it back to the school and ask Mr. Donaldson or Mr. Porter to contact the Guinness people for us."

The next step involved the collaboration of the six minds of we middle school-educated young men to figure out a way to get all of us onboard without tipping the bike over and it was quickly determined that that the order should go as follows:

On the front wheel, standing with his sneakers resting on the hub would be the smallest member of our group. Holding himself in place by reaching back and gripping the handlebars, he became the human figurehead on the prow of our two-wheeled ship.

The second rider was seated on the handlebars in regular fashion and I was placed in a sidesaddle position across the top tube of the frame, between the handlebars and the seat.

My cousin Scott stood up with his hands on my shoulder and pedaled while the fifth World Record: A Two-Wheeled Attempt at Immortality member of our crew sat on the seat with his hands wrapped around Scott's waist. The sixth and final member was placed in a standing position with his sneakers resting on the back hub. The trick was to get started and we accomplished this by leaving the bike in its place against the wall and climbing onboard. Pushing off, we wobbled down the driveway and out onto Sweet Briar Road, being careful to look for oncoming traffic. Once our speed increased we found it much easier to stay upright and soon we were tooling our way up the street toward New Jersey Avenue. We turned right by Taylor's Market and stayed inside the median barriers where our chances of encountering a moving car were greatly reduced

At the next corner, by Anderson's Variety Store, we swung left out onto the wide New Jersey Avenue and decided we would cut through Del Conte's Gas Station and continue down Astor Avenue to the school where we would be greeted by the cheering throng of our peers on the playground as we arrived with our world record safely in hand.

Unfortunately, we were spotted by the crossing guard, who was at his post out in front of Snuffy's Luncheonette.

"HEY!" the guard shouted. "Get off of that bike. Are you kid's crazy? Stop that bike right now!"

Stop that bike? Why, nobody had the vaguest idea of how to carry out the guard's demand because that detail had not been inserted into our master plan. We slowed down upon sight of the guard and were reduced back to a wobble and we fought to keep ourselves upright. Our momentum carried us toward the crossing guard, who was by then wearing a look of impending doom while bracing for impact as we closed in. There was a crash and a heap of tangled bodies. We all got up and brushed ourselves off and endured a dressing down by the exasperated crossing guard and then set off to complete our return to the school, this time on foot.

"Well, we managed to go three blocks," said one.

"Do you think it was enough for a world record?" asked another.

"Maybe. Let's go check it out in the library."