Sting-ray days

 I've been thinking lately about when I was a kid and riding my Sting-ray bike from dawn till dusk. I can remember getting my first new Sting-ray for my eleventh birthday and sleeping down in the basement with it that night. Our garage was turned into a finished rec-room that had a back door exit to the alley.

 I can also remember the year was 1969, just mid stream into the "chopper" craze. I think by the next summer I had hack-sawed off a pair of front forks from my older bike and hammered them onto the forks of my new Sting-ray making for one bad ass chopper.

not my bike, but about the same year and model as my first sting-ray

 I remember my father thinking I was crazy, but not as crazy as he thought I was the following summer when I talked him into letting me come to his shop on Saturday and letting me cut the center bar out and mount his old lawnmower engine onto the frame.  Those were the coolest summers I had as a kid, that started it all.