A Pearl Harbor Phantom

[Freqman1]

I enjoyed the story. In his mind it is clear He got the bike he wanted. So no one here has ever got a small detail wrong in one of their stories. Enough said. ty Charles

Not a small detail!

 

[DaGasMan]

Newspaper route? What's that? Wait... what's a newspaper?

 

[ABC Services]

Wow what a " story "

 

[jesus]

Yes 1941 was a few yrs before the Phantom was made......and can You imagine the weight of that bike if it was decked out with front and rear baskets......and then loaded with newspapers........He must have been in really good shape!!!!

Regardless of what type of bike it was, the story was incredible

 

[billyjones]

pics?

 

[DaGasMan]

There's a mix of historical impossibilities mixed in. Given the foresight to realize that bicycles wouldn't
be rationed due to the upcoming war? Dad should've used that foresight to invest in Zerox. $42 bicycle in
1941? $42 equates to $900 in today's money with inflation applied. Not to mention it was still considered
the Depression Era. That's some bike. Mind you, I tell stories about stuff that happened to me in the '90s
and they couldn't stand up to the fact checkers of today. This is still a great story.

 

[AmericanSchwinnfiend]

I loved the story, it was well written and since I have been to both Whitefish and Kalispell (in the early 1970s) It has some meaning to me.

 

[SchwinnAgain]

Wow that’s a lot of words…so he bought a phantom 8 years before they were made.?

Well, let's not forget back in the day, there were bike shops that added certain parts to some of their regular bikes to create "specials" that would make the neighborhood kids absolutely drool, much like how certain car dealerships would offer special vehicles or drop fire breathing 427's into factory Chevy Camaro's (cough Yenko cough).

So, it very well could have been Wheaton's Phantom, his own special Schwinn that you could get only at his shop, but not Schwinn's factory made Phantom.

And yes, this a great story, not only about about the "can do it" spirit of the people of yesterday but also the bike dealers who sometimes created one of a kind bikes to be enjoyed, never anticipating for a moment that there would be such a thing as bike enthusiasts several decades later pondering over their creation, wondering where the living heck it came from.

 

[GTs58]

Well, let's not forget back in the day, there were bike shops that added certain parts to some of their regular bikes to create "specials" that would make the neighborhood kids absolutely drool, much like how certain car dealerships would offer special vehicles or drop fire breathing 427's into factory Chevy Camaro's (cough Yenko cough).

So, it very well could have been Wheaton's Phantom, his own special Schwinn that you could get only at his shop, but not Schwinn's factory made Phantom.

And yes, this a great story, not only about about the "can do it" spirit of the people of yesterday but also the bike dealers who sometimes created one of a kind bikes to be enjoyed, never anticipating for a moment that there would be such a thing as bike enthusiasts several decades later pondering over their creation, wondering where the living heck it came from.

There is no way you can excuse the authors ignorance as to what bike he purchased in his story. Period!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The saleslady came over to me again and asked, “Did you shop here when you were a boy?”
I said, “Yes, I bought a Schwinn bicycle for my paper route.”
She found a scrapbook and we went through it looking at pictures of old bicycles, and there it was — the red and white “Phantom” model.
“I bought that bike from Mr. Wheaton on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941,” I said.
She looked at me quizzically for several moments, then said, “My. You have a very good memory.”
The date did not ring a bell for her. It was not her generation.