A Boy on a Schwinn

I think my life hit its peak when I had a bike and two dollars in my pocket. On a summer morning in 1958, I would climb out of bed and put on the uniform: a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. In the fifties we rolled up the cuffs on the jeans. I rolled the right one up a little higher so that it would not get caught in the bicycle chain.

Off to enjoy the world. I coasted my Schwinn three blocks down Miner to Miller, turned left, and headed to my first stop: Campbell’s Bakery on N. Main. They had all of the classics: bismarks, cream puffs, eclairs, donuts, Boston creams, and long johns. My favorite was the chocolate-covered long john, an enormous pastry stuffed with custard and coated with chocolate icing.

The next stop was Rider’s Hobby Shop, on Liberty west of Main. It had everything that an eleven-year-old could ever want: Lionel trains, models of every size and description, gas-powered model airplanes, BB guns, bicycles, slingshots, Wham-O Frisbees, and boomerangs. I could easily spend an hour just looking at all of the great stuff.

On “Bargain Days,” Rider’s would get fifteen or twenty beater bikes and sell them for a dollar apiece. Thirty kids would line up at five in the morning and dash to get their one-dollar special as soon as the doors were open. I tried but never got one. I think most of the guys who succeeded ended up on the offensive or defensive lines at Michigan.

I did buy a boomerang at Rider’s. I had watched the ads on TV and was very impressed that you could throw it and it would come right back to you. So I took mine to a big field by Mack School and fired that sucker with all my might. The boomerang sailed over the weeds toward the end of the field and disappeared.

I waited for it to reappear. A few minutes, a half hour, an hour. How long could it take for a boomerang to work its magic?

To this day, sixty-eight years later, it still has not returned. When I am sitting on my patio smoking a cigar, I scan the sky looking for the boomerang. These devices can drop a full-sized kangaroo. I need to see it coming before it drops me.

Okay, time for a snack. We had two outstanding dime stores downtown, Woolworth’s and Kresge’s, both conveniently located on Main St. The great thing about the dime stores was that you could actually afford to buy a lot of the cool stuff that you saw.

I bought a new kite every March, plus balsa-wood airplanes, glass piggy banks, a glass Liberty Bell bank, and a plastic reindeer that pooped jellybeans when you pulled its tail. I still have that very cool item, and it still works.

Both stores had a candy-and-nut counter. At Kresge’s, for less than fifty cents, I could get a quarter-pound of whole cashews. These beauties were salted and kept hot in a special glass oven and display case. I bought a little white bag of hot cashews and headed to the soda fountain for a cherry Coke. In 1958, the only bottled cola you could buy was Coke. There was no Diet Coke or flavored Cokes. Just Coke. So it was a special treat to go to the soda fountain and enjoy a fountain Coke with cherry syrup.

Talk about living large! Hot cashews and a cherry Coke was as good as it could possibly get.

Well, I still had a lot of time to kill, so I rode out to Michigan Stadium to see if there was a baseball game going on.

I know. That sounds strange: a baseball game in the Big House? But in the fifties and sixties, the gates to the stadium were never locked. Anyone could stroll in at any time, and a lot of high school and college athletes used it as a training facility. From the top of Section One they would run down ninety-two rows of seating, traverse to Section Two and run up ninety-two rows of seating. The star athletes would continue through all forty-four sections.

Anyway, a lot of my friends organized baseball games in the stadium. We brought our balls, bats, and gloves and set up a diamond in the northwest corner of the field. We used shirts for bases. We chose teams and played a nine-inning game.

Left field was obviously a short fence. We all pretended to be Al Kaline when we popped one into the left-field seats. I played baseball in the stadium at least ten times. I doubt that the groundskeepers wanted us there, but we were never tossed out. Definitely a little different than the high security days of the 2020s.

Unfortunately, no one was playing baseball today. I decided to take First St. home and stop for a chocolate malt at Washtenaw Dairy on the corner of First and Madison. The Dairy had only been open for twenty years then, but they already made what I considered the best malt in the world.

In 2025, they still make the same, world-class chocolate malt. I can’t go to Campbell’s or Kresge’s or Rider’s anymore, but I can still go to the Dairy to join my friends for a cup of coffee and a donut in the morning.

Many of my friends are in their seventies or eighties, and when they invite me to join them they don’t say, “Let’s meet at Washtenaw Dairy.” They say, “Meet us at Muehlig’s Waiting Room.”

I may have revisionist memory, but I don’t believe life has ever been better than it was when I rode my Schwinn downtown.

For more of Mike Sinelli’s writings, reminiscence, and ridiculousness, visit sinellimakesyoulaugh.com.

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Calls & Letters September 2025: The Dairy’s corner

To the Observer:

Just finished reading the My Town article by Mike Sinelli [“A Boy on a Schwinn,” August]. As a 92 year old resident of Ann Arbor—Washtenaw Dairy is on the corner of Madison and Ashley—not First Street. I’m sure many will notice this error.

Sincerely,

Doug Barnett

Barnett was the first to notice this editorial error. Our apologies to the Dairy and to Sinelli.