Restoring a Dream
"It was funny about toys. We didn’t realize it, Joe and I, until we were adults, but in those grim, lean days, any extra money went on food. And we could always play kick-the-can in the street, since old tin cans were always easy to find.
In fact, there was only one time when the need for toys really got to me - and that one time was enough to teach me a lesson I’ll never forget.
We were living with an uncle at the time, the four of us. And our uncle had six kids of his own. Count it up; that’s twelve people living in a three-bedroom house. The little ones – and the last ones to get to sleep – had to sleep on the floor. And during the day we were struggling along on this sort of crazy diet:
For breakfast, we would have a gooey mixture of hot coffee and bread, all stirred tofether. And then I would dash off to school in this bear-up pair of knickers I always wore – which was fine, except that I didn’t ever have the socks to match – and at 21 degrees below zero, it was a race between me and my legs all the way to school.
For lunch, we had fried potatoes, and for dinner, spaghetti. That was it. A piece of meat or stew was a gala occasion, and there was dancing all around the table like something out of Charles Dickens. Meat – hot ziggedty!
But everybody went without things. There were two things I wanted more than anything else. One, I wanted a pair of gym shoes. Sneakers. I never got a pair. And today, when I could have a whole warehouse full of sneakers, it is too late. The kick is gone.
Two, I had always wanted a bicycle of my very own. Not just any bike. In those days, there was a model called the Ranger bicycle. It wasn’t particularly special, not even expensive, I suppose. It was just the in-bike of the day, the neatest thing I had ever seen. I used to stand on the sidewalks and stare at kids who had Rangers; sometimes beg to take just a short ride on one. And finally, one day I stole one.
It was parked in front of the Uptown Theater in Chicago; I had been standing there looking at it for a long time, dreaming about riding it. And then I just took it and rode it home. I hid it down in the basement, then walked up and say on the front stoop. Slowly, the enormity of what I had done began to get through to me. I could picture the kid – whoever he was – coming out of the theater and finding his bike gone.
So I sighed, went back down to the basement and dragged the Ranger back up again. I rode it all the way back to the theater and parked it just where I found it; the movie wasn’t even over yet. I walked back home.
That marked the beginning and the end of my criminal career. All in the same hour. I have often wondered how my life would have gone if my conscience hadn’t gone into high gear and told me to take the Ranger back.
It was another lesson, a new crisis. It has stayed with me for life.
And today, with a collection of luxurious and exotic automobiles in my garage and at our racing shops – a Cadillac Eldorado, a Mercedes-Benz, a pair of famous Avantis, a half-dozen celebrated racecars, a Honda motorcycle, a toy Model A that runs on a little gas engine and two lightweight multi-speed bicycles – I would still like to have a Ranger.
But I suppose there aren’t any left."
Granatelli, Anthony. They Call Me Mister 500, H. Regnery Co, 1969. p. 21-22