April 06, 2006

Thirty years ago, a pair of college pals and I got the bright idea to ride our bicycles to Pensacola during Auburn University’s spring break. But only two of us owned bikes. In 1976, Biggin Hall on campus was home to the school of architecture; industrial design students were assigned to the building’s basement. Tim was the friend without a bicycle. However, he was studying industrial design, and thus experienced at operating the assorted machinery and power tools that were part of his curriculum. The three of us lived on the same floor at Magnolia Dormitory. Aware that a student residing a couple of floors above us who was going home to Nebraska for spring vacation never locked his blue Schwinn to any permanent structure in the stairwell, instead looping a heavy chain and lock around the rear wheel and bike frame so it could not be ridden away by a thief, we decided in desperation to borrow his bike for our trip.

We loaded the Schwinn into the trunk of my Chevelle and drove through a deserted campus to the industrial design lab. We scouted for a campus night watchman making his rounds as we crept down to the basement machine shop with the locked-up bicycle. Shortly, an unbearably loud bandsaw-type contraption disrupted the silence of the ghost town the Auburn campus became between quarters. It took 15 minutes to cut the chain loose from the bike. The basement lab had windows that could be seen from the street. Should we be spotted sawing a locked chain off of a bicycle, we doubted that the security guard or any campus cop driving by would believe that we were simply borrowing the bike. Before we could finish, a night watchman walked into the room. Luckily, it was the campus security guard whom Joey, the other friend in our trio of bandits, and I knew from nights spent working on oil paintings in a building nearby. He recognized us and, amazingly, bought our story that we were slicing off the chain because we could not remember the combination to the lock.

The next morning, we drove to my hometown of Selma in the Chevelle with one bike in the trunk and two strapped on top of the automobile (Selma to Pensacola was a much shorter trip than bicycling from Auburn.) At sunrise the following day, we pedaled off on our adventure down Highway 41, a two-lane that led us to a county road, which took us to Oak Hill at the end of day one of our trip, some 50 miles. After stopping at a small grocery late that afternoon to inquire if there were any churches where we could spend the night (due to a drizzling rain), we were instead offered a stable in the backyard of the proprietor’s home a few miles away. Settled into our sleeping bags, we suddenly heard the grocery owner’s wife shouting at her husband from the house: “There’s damn rattlesnakes out there in that damn stable! Let those damn boys sleep up here at the house!” The remainder of the evening was spent on the couple’s stately front porch.

None of us had proper bikes for a 300-mile journey, and our pathetic 10-speed bicycles made the unexpectedly hilly terrain of southwest Alabama a grueling workout. Forty miles farther south by lunch the next day, there wasn’t much fun being had. We were in no shape to pedal all the way to Florida. Finally resorting to flagging down pickup trucks, we lied to an elderly man who pulled over to help, claiming mechanical problems. Three rides later, we arrived at sunset on the outskirts of Pensacola.

We spent the days riding, swimming, and scouting for potential shelter should it rain come bedtime. Each evening we indulged in cheap draft beer and loud bands knocking off Led Zeppelin and Stones covers at beach-front lounges. After midnight, sleeping bags were drunkenly hauled as close to the water as the tides allowed. Few experiences are more hypnotic and peaceful than drifting off to sleep outdoors as waves crash against the shore a couple of hundred feet away. The steady drone of the surf, the stars, and breaking whitecaps were mesmerizing, and a cure for even the worst insomnia. After three days of carousing the bars of Pensacola and sleeping on the beach at night, we headed back north.

The first day we got as far as Atmore, Alabama, without bumming rides. It began to rain. Not wanting to spend the money or violate the spirit of true adventure by getting a motel room, we went to the police station to see if they could suggest a free place to stay. They did. We were given a cell for the night but were told not to close the jail door; the morning shift would never believe our story if we had to ask the jailers to let us out because we accidently locked ourselves up. Having secured sleeping quarters, we walked to a city diner that evening, then went to see the film Shampoo at the town’s lone movie theater. Later, back at the jail, we laughed ourselves to sleep at the spectacle of spending the night in a jail cell with an open door—with a stolen bicycle in our possession.

Pedaling out of town the next morning, we discussed the plight of those locked up in the federal prison on the outskirts of Atmore as we cycled past the scary-looking penitentiary on the highway. The three of us wondered aloud what percentage of those locked up had bicycle theft on their rap sheets. Though taking a different route back to Selma, pedaling again became a strenuous bore, and we reverted to the same lies that had gotten us most of the way to Pensacola in the backs of trucks. By noon, we had reached Camden, about 20 miles south of Selma. While eating lunch at a local cafe, a woman in the next booth overheard us speculating about how long it would take to reach Selma. She was a photographer for the Auburn Plainsman, the school paper, and when she learned that we were Auburn students, she requested a photo with a caption detailing how three students spent their spring vacation. Forgetting we had a stolen bicycle from the Auburn campus, we failed to consider the consequences of having our picture splashed across the front page of the school paper.

One act of theft was enough to last me a lifetime. Tim had probably had his fill, too. Oddly, Joey soon began getting his kicks dressing in black from head to toe (including smearing black paint on his face), roaming the Auburn campus in the middle of the night to steal potted plants from outside stores and residences. He boasted of eluding the police on several occasions.

We got back to campus before the Nebraska kid returned to Auburn for spring quarter. The stolen Schwinn was returned to its proper place in the dormitory stairwell, as had been our plan all along. We even saved the butchered chain with accompanying lock, draping the chain across the frame and relishing the guy’s probable astonishment that his chain had been cut, yet his bicycle was still where he had left it a week earlier. &