Stuff I Did in the '80s
I Want to Ride My Bicycle
I Want to Ride My Bicycle

It’s crazy to think that kids riding their bikes all over town on television shows like Stranger Things is now a glimpse into a bygone past of the American suburbs. I received my Sears “20-inch Single-speed Motocross-look” bike, with a mounted AM radio, for my 7th birthday and could not wait to explore my neighborhood on my own. I had, roughly, a 1-mile area that I could freely travel about in to visit friends, buy candy, ice cream and purchase cigarettes for my mom (yes, I was way underage).

You always knew where your neighborhood friends were because their bikes would be unceremoniously heaped in the yard of the house they were playing at. Many summer afternoons were spent rummaging through construction sites in hopes of finding enough wood scraps to construct a bike ramp. As I jumped over the ramp—my front tire just a few inches from the ground—I was Evel Knievel soaring across the Grand Canyon.

Next
Scroll Left
Introduction Half a Boombox I’m Not a Member I was Simon Le Bon (For Fifteen Minutes) Motown 25 Watch Whatever, Whenever Snowblind You’re the One That I Want Call Me Your Kiss is on My List Electric Boogaloo Dear Daryl Hall and John Oates Where Shopping is a Pleasure Dialect of a Decade I’m Alright The Sunshine State Shazam! It’s Just a Fantasy I’ve Got a Secret Sunday Funnies Impeachment American Top 40 License to Drive Risky (Show) Business Jumping Someone Else’s Train Yakety Sax I Want to be Elton John When I Grow Up Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Tetherball, Dodgeball & Flag Football Sk8 or Go Home Roll a Saving Throw vs. Velour Piano Man The Duckman Cometh Money for Nothing Waiting for the Bus More Than Meets the Eye The Legend Begins Whip It When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best Master Chef Muppetmania I Want to Ride My Bicycle WW III My Octopus Teacher Some Like it Hot Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs Dare to Be Stupid Keeping the Faith
Scroll Right

Never Abandon Imagination Tony DiTerlizzi: Never abandon imagination.

Imagination is a world of possibility that exists within each of us. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is our creative fingerprint that touches and influences the world around us. Imagination is essential to art and science; to innovation and prosperity. It gives us hope, calls us to action and leads to change.

Whether it’s fairies, dragons, robots or aliens, all of my children’s book characters are siblings born of my imagination – an imagination strengthened through years of encouragement from family, teachers and friends. While so many others abandoned it during their transition from childhood to adulthood, I fiercely held onto mine, hoping for a day when I could share it to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Innovators. World changers.

Imagination empowers us to envision and create a reality of what could be. We must hold it dear, foster it and never abandon it.