The Flying Bike I Saw in 1960
by E. Alan Meece aka Eric Meece
For UUFLG Band of Writers, April 13, 2025
When I was 10-11 years old in about 1960, I roamed all over the Santa Clara Valley on my bicycle watching as carpenters were putting up new tract housing all over the area. San Jose’s population grew from 95,000 in 1950 to about 200,000 in 1960. It was safer to ride around San Jose then than it is now with San Jose population now up to over a million. I rode from my Willow Glen house over to Tully Road and the 101 overpass, and out the other way to Santa Clara too, and south to Foxworthy Ave. and to Leigh Ave where I now live. I had friends then who lived in this area. One of my favorite places to ride was up to Blossom Hill Road. These days that is a dangerous place to ride a bike; it’s a busy two-lane, two-way street with almost no room on the sides. But I not only rode my Schwinn bike there in 1960, but glided on it fast down the steep side streets. It was like flying. Nowadays my lightweight multi-speed department store bike cannot even make it up the hill even in its lowest gear. I would not ride that bike now down those streets. Only a few blocks from there is where the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Los Gatos was being built around these times. Old Blossom Hill Road was still Blossom Hill Road then too.
But usually in these essays I like to make connections to my favorite old TV shows and music. And maybe be led into fantasy. I admit this connection is a bit tenuous, but it’s fun. On last Friday night April 11, 2025 the old Perry Mason episode "The Wandering Widow" was broadcast on MeTV. It was originally aired in October 1960, at the very time I could have been riding my bike around San Jose on Blossom Hill Road. One character in it was my age, too; Jimmy Kendall, who was the son of evil character Riley Morgan who had briefly married the "widow", a lady named Lorraine whose next rich, generous and loving marriage partner Mr. Martin Kendall, who adopted Jimmy, had been murdered by Riley earlier, and had thus made the now Mrs. Kendall a rich widow. But this wandering widow did not ride bikes, but only drove her car. Riley Morgan had recently gotten away with the earlier murder, and been released because of a blackmailing phony witness now taking advantage of him to make money. But to some relatives and to Lt. Tragg, the wandering and rather reclusive widow Lorraine Kendall seemed like some kind of witch, and he now accused her of murdering this same blackmailer who was taking advantage of her too, and thought she had earlier murdered her new husband Mr. Kendall too for his money. The young man Jimmy seemed to be like a man in a boy’s body, confident, mature and aware. Very impressive! And he revealed a touch of his real father at the very end of the episode with his sarcastic remark to Perry Mason’s private detective Paul Drake, who had failed to spot the clue to solve the case that proved Riley guilty of the murder of his blackmailer, which acquitted Jimmy’s loving and over-protective mother-- Perry’s accused client and "wandering widow". So in the final scene of the program Jimmy walked up to Paul and asked, "Why didn’t you see this clue, Mr. Drake? Aren’t you a detective? Well, aren’t ya?"
Jimmy Kendall on The Wandering Widow
Who played Jimmy? None other than Stephen Talbot, who also had a regular role playing the smart alec kid Gilbert on Leave it to Beaver. But, I never saw him riding a bike in the Perry Mason episode, and I don’t remember any other character riding a bike on the 270 other Perry Mason episodes, although I may have forgotten. Another impressive boy about my age in a Perry Mason episode was played by Billy Mumy of Lost in Space fame, but in his key scene in Perry Mason he rode a bus. He never rode a bike on Lost in Space either, but only rocket ships. He didn’t ride a bike either in The Twilight Zone episode "It’s A Good life" in which he played a monster tyrant aged 6 who reminds me of Donald Trump today. "You keep thinking bad thoughts about me" says Mumy’s character Anthony Fremont as he banishes character Dan Hollis to the cornfield from which no-one ever returns. Unlike the futuristic Lost in Space, in It’s A Good Life everything in his town of Peaksville Ohio is brought back to the Dark Ages, says Rod Serling. No bikes there; that’s even too futuristic for Anthony.
Billy Mumy on The Case of the Shifty Shoebox (Perry Mason, 1963)
Billy Mumy as Anthony Fremont banishes Dan Hollis to the cornfield (1961)
Interesting that pianist "Riley" in "It’s A Good Life" is played by the same actor Max Showalter who played the blackmailer Mr. Stokes whom another "Riley" murdered in "The Wandering Widow".
The only character I remember riding a bike I saw on TV in around 1960 was Miss Gulch from the Wizard of Oz, a movie I have written fantasies about in earlier Band of Writers essays. She rode away after legally kidnapping Dorothy’s dog Toto as a supposed threat to the community after Toto bit the mean Miss Gulch, played by Margaret Hamilton, but Toto escaped out of the basket perched on the back of Miss Gulch’s bike and scurried back to Dorothy. Before long though the tornado hit and sent Dorothy’s house up into the wind, or so it seemed. Dorothy looked out the window of the flying house and saw Miss Gulch riding her flying bike. Pretty soon Miss Gulch morphed into a wicked witch, and the bike into a broomstick, but when Dorothy landed in Oz her house fell on top of her and crushed her.
Miss Gulch takes Toto, Toto escapes
Miss Gulch on her bike becomes the Wicked Witch of the East on her broomstick
Some people today look forward to the time when cars can fly. Even flying space suits. But what about bikes? What if we could have flying bikes like Miss Gulch? Then I could fly up to Blossom Hill Road and go to church on my bike instead of in my car. I could achieve my life ambition and become a male witch. What if Will Robinson of Lost in Space, Jimmy Kendall, Gilbert and Beaver Cleaver all rode on flying bikes? Would they then be called young male witches? Would their bikes morph into broomsticks? Could they have all gotten together and helped Dorothy defeat Miss Gulch’s sister the Wicked Witch of the West better than the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion managed to do? I don’t even remember any flying bikes inside the land of Oz itself either. The robot that constantly warned "Danger, Will Robinson" has today developed into the dangerous AI, while the futuristic ideal of flying bikes is ignored. Why all this discrimination against bikes and flying bikes? Where are peoples’ imagination? If I ask this, do I sound like Jimmy Kendall, aka Gilbert?
The Case of the Wandering Widow, commentary by The Perry Pod
Fly Away by Eric Meece
Emily and Aytug at the meeting mentioned that ET rode a flying bike (1983), and that Dennis the Menace (played by the recently deceased Jay North) in the sixties was seen riding his bike. So maybe my Gilbert-like sarcasm wasn’t entirely correct!