In the summer of 1975, my friend Paul and I decided to ride our bikes to Camp Dearborn. This became one of the greatest adventures of that summer. However, it didn’t end very well.
It might have been the summer of 1974. Time has softened the details, like faded blue jeans, washed too many times.
My Best Friend Paul
Paul was my best friend during my junior high and early high school years. He lived a few houses down from me.
Paul liked to go on adventures, and take risks. He had a lot of enthusiasm and he was fun to be around. I remember when we jumped off the garage into his backyard swimming pool. (Paul was a great diver on the Edsel Ford swim team.)
One time Paul built a cool mini bike with a small bike frame, retrofitted with a chainsaw motor. This contraption was really loud, but you could still hear him laughing and screaming as he would drive it really fast up and down the streets in the neighborhood.
Although he was a year younger than me, I admired Paul’s sense of adventure, and self-sufficiency. He was an old soul with a wild heart.
Perhaps this was because his mother worked long hours and his father was an alcoholic. He had to figure things out on his own, and I was fascinated by the way he navigated the world without a safety net.
We lived in a neighborhood of typical three bedroom ranch style homes near Oakwood Hospital.
Paul’s father was a meat cutter at a butcher shop in Detroit. My dad was a mechanical engineer at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn.
The Bike Ride to Camp Dearborn
Camp Dearborn is a campground and recreation area, with small lakes and a golf course. It’s owned by the City of Dearborn, but it’s located about 40 miles away in Milford Michigan.
Enough background. Let’s talk about the bike riding adventure.
Have you ever launched out on an adventure without knowing exactly where you were going, and how long it would take? I guess all of life is like that, in some ways.
Apparently, it should take about 4 hours to ride a bike from where we lived in Dearborn all the way to the entrance of Camp Dearborn. That’s assuming you don’t get a flat tire, and you know where you’re going. How do you ride a bike from Dearborn to Milford without traveling on a dangerously busy road? I still don’t know how we did it.
I think we arrived at Camp Dearborn around noon. We went swimming at the lake, and rode the paddle boats. Then we played Frisbee, and a quick game of basketball.
Sliding Into The Danger Zone
Next, Paul wanted to slide down the slimy side of a small dam, connecting a river to one of the lakes. Signs near the dam said: “Danger. Keep Off! No swimming, diving or climbing. ”
In spite of the large red and white danger signs, some teenage boys were laughing and shouting as they slid down the slippery, green algae covered, concrete slab.
One of my childhood anxieties was the fear of drowning. We heard stories about kids who had died playing near that dam. Paul wanted to try it. He thought it looked like fun. I didn’t think it was a good idea.
Paul took another look at the signs and laughed: “It doesn’t say anything about sliding.” Then he slid down the middle of the dam a few times. Perhaps the water was a little more shallow that week. Nobody got hurt.
Time To Ride Home
The hours melted away like ice cream in the July sun. It was nearing 5:00pm. If we wanted to make it home before dark, we needed to start peddling fast. But instead we hung around at the canteen, eating hot dogs and French fries, and drinking Cokes — trying to stretch a little more fun into an already full day.
We were waiting for the music to start at the canteen, so we could dance with some girls. My memory is as frayed as the old blue-jean-cut-offs (shorts) I was wearing that day… but here’s what I recall…
The music started around 6:00 or 7:00pm. My friend Paul danced with a few girls. I stood around watching people dance, and tried to get up the courage to ask this really cute girl to dance with me. I never did ask any girls to dance with me that evening. I was too shy, and afraid of getting turned down.
Why was I standing around? I felt so torn, irresolute, and double-minded, standing idle — while sitting-on-the-fence of indecision. I felt like a failure. My teenage angst was growing like the lengthening shadows that summer evening.
Some time, perhaps around 7:30 I convinced Paul that we really needed to peddle home before it got dark. The bike ride would take another 4 hours. Sunset was probably around 9:00pm.
We made it half-way to Dearborn by 10:00pm, and stopped at Paul’s aunt’s house in Livonia. A phone call was made, and one of our parents drove out to pick us up.
I don’t remember what they said, but they probably gave us a long interrogation on the ride home in the car… with phrases like: “What were you thinking?”, or “you could have been killed by a truck — riding your bike in the dark”. And once the dust settled, the conversation probably concluded with the moms saying something like: “Don’t do that again” and “I’m just glad you made it home alive.”
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Published on 3-Oct-2025.
great story