Call Me PikeMike, Just Like Jack Christened Me

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll forgo my usual opus and let the picture stand for itself.

This Northern Pike, caught off our dock out back and down the hill in the Mississippi bayou, would have weighed in at 18.5 pounds if I would have had a scale and been brave enough to hoist the scaly, saber-toothed dinosaur.


Kate also asked whether I wanted her to take a picture of me holding it before I released it to join its relatives in the muddy waters. I passed on that opportunity — its teeth were HUGE — and just made it a tale of the tape on the ground before returning the scaly monster to the deep. Fortunately, Google sent me to a website that computes the weight based on the length, 40 inches in this case. (Google can tell you the DAMNDEST things, eh?)

Well, here I am already violating my vow to be brief, because the light just dawned, and I need to share an anecdote:

I always thought that Jack just had trouble pronouncing my name back when he was 1½ or 2. He didn’t seem to be able to spit out the three syllables of Papa Mike, like Vincent did, and he wouldn’t say just Mike, for some reason — probably as a show of respect, even at that young age.

So he settled on PikeMike, which remains my fave nickname to this day. And I still find it amazing the solutions that kids come up with to solve their problems.

And now I realize that Jack wasn’t tongue-tied but a genius — a psychic, even — who could see into the future, predicting that folks someday might acknowledge my Northern Pike prowess. I can just imagine that, after I’ve passed on to the fishing grounds in the sky, earthbound folks still will be talking about old PikeMike in the same breath as they recall legends such as Davy Crockett and another famous Mike: Mike Fink.

I think I’ll let the lad pick some lottery numbers for me, and I might even ask him when HE thinks the rapture will be. Why wait for all the others, after so many predictions have proved wrong over the years, when there's a psychic in the house?

I Feel Like a Tyke, With a Bike

I always step back a bit and relish the sight when a parent and a child trek from the bicycle section nestled in the back of a big-box store, with the youngster grinning broadly and the parent smiling proudly as they queue up to pay for the offspring’s first bike. The excitement in the child’s sparkling eyes is a sight to behold, as much as the lad’s or lassie’s mouth will behold new teeth when the next generation of choppers pushes through to replace the newly fallen baby teeth.

Imagine the irony, then, when daughter Allison took me to a big-box store to buy a combo birthday/Father’s Day present of a new fishing tackle satchel and some lures — and we walked past the bicycle section tucked in the rear of the store. Each of us tarried, thinking the same thing, until we voiced the thought, almost simultaneously, that maybe I should get a bike.

Oh, I don’t mean the clunky three-wheelers that some men of a certain age wrangle, all decked out with a slow-moving vehicle sign and a tall orange flag fluttering in the breeze so nobody hits ’em. Rather, two 2-wheelers in particular beckoned. Two beckoned, both retro looking: a blue Schwinn and a tan and blue Huffy.

Even though I leaned toward the Schwinn’s big-name status, the Huffy’s color scheme was soooooooo much cooler. Plus, what’s more retro than the Huffy name? The seat even had “Huffy” emblazoned on it, right above those old-fashioned springs on its big, comfy-looking seat, a common design before the onslaught of bikes with butt-busting seats that make you feel like you’ve been hoisted on your own petard.

The deciding factor came after a store employee invited me to take a ride, right there in the aisle. So I did, and found the Huffy more to my liking. (Later, Allison acknowledged that I had looked a bit wobbly on the Schwinn, and more relaxed on the Huffy.)

Next thing I knew, we were walking my new bike past the fishing equipment, with me grinning ear to ear and Allison (we share birthdays, by the way) chuckling and shaking her head and admonishing me that, if I get hurt on the bike, she’ll feel so guilty that she’ll KILL me.

“And you’d better wear a helmet,” she warned, as if she were a parent lecturing a petulant little kid.

I daresay that this retro Huffy is a lot more comfy and rider-friendly than the adult chopper bike — it was a Schwinn, as a matter of fact — that I just HAD to have a couple of years back. I bought it for myself, for my birthday, without even trying it out, because I just liked it and thought I’d look cool.

As it turned out, I did look cool on it, and I’m not bragging. A coupla twentysomething guys stopped me one day to admire the chopper and inquire about it. Awestruck, one of them said, “I bet you could pick up a lot of chicks with this.”

Well, I guess I could have fitted a chick on the banana seat, but I never tried. In fact, I learned soon after buying my cool-looking bike that it had three drawbacks:
1. It made my bum and, uh, other “nether regions,” shall I say, go to sleep.
2. I couldn’t stand up, which probably is why I ended up with a numb bum and, uh, another extremity.
3. The fact that the front wheel was pitched far forward made turning in a circle a daunting task. Indeed, the turning circumference was so wide that I started turning left in West Palm Beach one day on Florida’s east coast, and ended up in Naples, on the Sunshine State’s west coast, before I came full circle.

So I sold it to a guy who was going to put a motor on it so his wife could have a chopper matching his.

I had no reason to get huffy about it, as the bike and I just didn’t fit together. And now, I’m pleased as punch to be riding my Huffy, although Kate informed me that it’s blue and yellow rather than blue and tan, as I had thought. Well, the fenders look tan to me, anyway.

When I called to report in to Al how great it worked after my first lengthy excursion, her only question was: “Were you wearing your helmet?”

OK, enough is enough on this parent-child role reversal.

P.S.: Kate likes my ride so much that I bought her a matching chick bike for her birthday. After all, I figured it was worth it to mark a milestone like a 30th birthday. Hers is the Huffy female companion to mine, lime green with tan fenders. Or, as she refers to tan: yellow.

Allison happened to call as we were at the store picking it up. Her question: “Are you getting her a helmet, too?” Good GAWD, who died and appointed her to the helmet police corps?

Mike and his bike, wearing his helmet, and without:

Now that I look at this photo, I can't help recalling something about little Ms. Wear-Your-Helmet, or ELSE Allison: See that stone wall behind me? Well, during her first visit to our new digs in the Badger State, she backed up her car and ran right into the dadgum thing. Oh, the only damages were a few scratches and a bruised ego. Ironically, her car even has one of those back-up cameras with which she should have seen the wall, if she'd have been paying attention. Seems to me maybe SHE's the one who should be wearing a helmet.