Rubber, Can Be A Blessing

.
I’m sitting here trying to think how rubber impacted my life as a kid.             ––Blank. I can’t think of anything made of rubber. --No, wait a minute, my slingshot used strips cut from a tire tub. 

As a kid we didn’t have rubber garden hoses. We watered out of a watering can. Wagons had wooden wheels. Toys had wooden wheels. Bicycles had rubber tires, but I didn’t own one until I was eleven. 

Bubble gum has rubber in it. How great is that invention? The first piece of gum I chewed long and hard. Real long, I could not figure out when to swallow it. Nobody told me you couldn't eat it.

In the early '50s, I remember solid rubber tires on electric postal trucks in the city of Munich. Solid rubber tires on beer barrel wagons. My stepfather used an ax to chop up old truck tire to burn to heat the water on washday.

However, I never saw an old tire used just to save the rims of a rusty bike.

This bike is to be pushed only. It is used to carry whatever needs transporting; a bunch of bananas, a bundle of sticks or a sack of sweet potatoes. Look at it, the tire is as flat as a pancake, hardly any rubber left.

Here in America one can hardly give away a bike. Donation places are full of them. (I guess bikes and video games do not blend) 


. . . Count your blessings my friend, and have a merry CHRISTmas.

.