I was 10 years old when George McGovern won the democratic presidential nomination. A little idealist in love with my civics class. I believed then, as now, that we all have the power to change the world. Without telling my parents, I felt no need to, I volunteered for McGovern’s campaign distributing campaign literature around my hometown.
On my 5-speed Huffy Stingray bike from True Value Hardware Store.
It wasn’t cool, but it got the job done.
Then the 10-speed revolution began. I didn’t just want a 10-speed. I needed a 10-speed. I needed it bad. 5th grade crack.
My dad came through, oddly. A French Peugeot racing bike. Built for a man two feet taller than me. Black, with a natural leather seat – the same color combination as my current car. Sleek, like a whippet.
No one showed me how French gears shifted. No one adjusted the seat height. I was simply handed a world class racing bike and sent on my merry McGovern way. I fell over occasionally, but so did McGovern.
To me the choice for President was obvious. Nixon was shifty. Self-serving. He wasn’t to be trusted. I knew that before Watergate.
Bravado convinced me that despite polling, McGovern was going to win in a Dewey defeats Truman kind of way.
Election night, I parked myself in front of the TV with my Spiderman notebook to track votes. I made Jiffy Pop, sure my whole family was going to watch. When I called them into the living room, they all looked confused.
Why would we do that?
I don’t know – to protect the free world? To participate in the greatest government in the history of the world? To hold my 10-year-old hand during the first presidential election I was going to remember?
Rising up from his recliner my dad looked bemused and said, “Greg, McGovern is going to lose.” And he was, of course, right.
Richard Nixon got 60.7% of the popular vote.
I was devastated.
My dad didn’t explain why the worst man won. He just gloated.
Election became inauguration, became spring, became end of the school year.
A teenage neighbor, the neighborhood weed dealer, got mad at me about something. I can’t remember what. I was probably hopeful, and he wanted to kill it. Whatever. Also a gloater, he told me he had stolen the bike Peugeot and had sold it to my dad, who knew it was stolen when he bought it.
I’d let myself fall in love with that unlikely bike. I had plans to grow into it, see the world on it, and grow old together.
I knew with all my heart that the real owner loved the bike too. I felt bad. And stupid. As though my dad had tricked me into believing I might be the kind of person who deserved to ride that bike, when I wasn’t.
And never would be.
I hid the bike in the garage under a tarp while I decided what to do. I was convinced that the cops were looking for it. My father asked me why I wasn’t riding it. I told him I knew it was stolen, and that I didn’t want it anymore.
With no sense of irony, the bike was returned to the thief.
I got myself out of the bad situation. Richard Nixon did not.
August 9, 1974. A Friday. 8pm CT. We all stayed home to watch Nixon resign. My dad gave me $5 to go get a family bucket from KFC.
My Peugeot days were over.
I jumped on my Huffy and headed to the Colonel. The streets were empty. Everyone was home glued to their TVs watching history be made. I was on the road all alone.
I got home. 16 minutes later Richard Nixon was no longer President. Like our chicken, he was extra crispy. My dad was somber. As though he just found out that sometimes consequence was real.
I felt it too. In a good way. An empowering way.
I turned to my dad and said, “I guess you should have voted for George McGovern.”
Soon after, I was looking through the paper reading the comics and saw a Coca-Cola sweepstakes contest. I entered, won a 10-speed Schwinn all on my own and hit the open road.
Greg Triggs’ first novel, The Next Happiest Place on Earth, was published in 2016. His latest novel, That Which Makes Us Stronger (Redhawk Publications), is out now. He lives in Narrowsburg, NY.
