Bikes and Jim at Le Mans

A Memory

By David Appleton

 

On June 11, 1955 a horrific crash occurred during the famous 24-hour automobile endurance race at Le Mans, Sarthe, France. Driver Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes went out of control and crashed into the stands filled with a crowd of spectators in the stands and blew up. The carnage was unspeakable. 82 people were killed and over 180 were injured.

Aftermath of 1955 crash at Le Mans

 

At the time, I was an 8th grade student in George Inness Jr. High School in Montclair, NJ., and something of a car and auto racing enthusiast, as many young boys were at the time, probably still are. So, I was appalled by this news but allured to it as seems to be human nature… we rubberneck to see the horrendous wreck on the highway while being simultaneously drawn to look and to avert our eyes. And, of course there’s the attraction of NASCAR…. but that’s another story. So, I was drawn to find out all I could about the lurid details of the Le Mans tragedy and read all I could find about this event. But then a few days later I got a letter from brother Jim, who was in the Army and stationed in France. Jim had made it his business to see as much of France as possible while stationed there.

 

So, whenever he got leave, or a weekend pass, he would hop on his newly purchased Stella, a French touring bike with eight derailleur gears, and peddle off on some new adventure.

 

His letter described some of his adventures and some of the corny stuff brothers would write to one another. But at the end he announced his destination for his next ride on his personal “Tour de France”: Le Mans and the 24-hour race.

 

I can’t describe my horror. I was shaken and sickened. My imagination put Jim at the crash.

 

My brother Jim was my idol. Though 10 years apart in age, we were close. We were our only two siblings. I think I was closer from my point of view since I was probably more of a burden (read “pain in the ass”) to him. When I was born both my parents worked; Dad was a factory worker-machinist-model tool and die maker for Union Carbide Corporation, and Mom was a telephone operator for New Jersey Bell Telephone working mostly nights. So for the first year of my life, my German-speaking Grandmother, Anna Bordt, who lived with us, was my caretaker most of the time. When she passed away the task of “David Watch” fell to Jim. He was about 11 or 12, my age at the time of this Le Mans letter.

 

When Jim wanted to play baseball with his friends, he’d often have to take me along in my stroller or whatever. We lived on Park Street in Montclair NJ at the time, across from the Watchung Erie Train Station not far from Watchung School where Jim was enrolled. Occasionally Jim would wheel me over to the Watchung School playground to join his friends in a baseball game. I’m told I would sit and watch with something like enthusiasm. Jim’s best friend, Bob Crane, called me “Sheik” for as long as I knew him ... probably because of the attention I seemed to require or that Jim bestowed. So, my bonding to Jim was beyond brotherly love and bordered on adoration, kind of like what a faithful dog feels toward a worthy attentive master.

 

So, the news of his intention to go to Le Mans to see the race was beyond devastating. I spent a few weeks in abject depression awaiting news. The longer the absence of mail from Jim, the more I mourned.

 

 But an aside on Jim and Bikes…. In France he bought one of the finest touring bikes available, a Stella.

 

 

Stella was a French bicycle manufacturer founded in 1909. The company sponsored Louison Bobet a French professional cyclist. Bobet won the Tour de France in 1953 and 1954 while riding Stella bicycles similar to this. Knowing this, and Jim’s impeccable taste for fine things, predicted his choice in bicycles as well as in many other things. Jim’s Stella looked something like the one pictured here, but it was actually a touring version with fenders and a carrier frame on the back and a few other accoutrements that were not on the lightweight racing version.

 

Jim’s passion for bicycles continued throughout his life. It seemed genetic, somehow related to our father’s (Charles J. Appleton, Jr.) passion for cars (Dad bought Chryslers regularly every 2 years from Charley Burett at Decozen… soon as ash trays were full).  Jim passed this passion for bicycles on to his kids, Karin, CJ and Gordon, all bicycle enthusiasts; especially CJ whose joy in riding adventures in childhood lured him as a youngster, maybe 8 or 10, to roads well beyond what Jim and Eleanor would have allowed. Based at their home in Bethesda MD, CJ rode his bike throughout the DC area, and in maturity pushed the envelope even further as an Iron Man competitor/winner of his class. Jim too enjoyed competition as in this photo snapped during a “Make-a-Wish” competition 9/21/91 in Maryland.

 

Here's Big Jim going for it at age 60.

 

But I digress, back to Le Mans and my fears.… I finally got a letter from Jim relating how he had been there during the race and the horrendous crash and had been watching from directly across the track from where the carnage occurred…. WOW!! Other than that, he never talked about it, at least not in my hearing. And I did not press him on the issue. It must have been a terrible thing to see.

 

My relief was enormous, as was that of our parents…. and Eleanor. I’m hoping to find Jim’s letter of July or August 1955 but so far no luck. If I do find it, I’ll share it with you.

 

But back to the Stella; when Jim got back from Europe, finished with active duty and ready to move on to other things  — like pursuing Eleanor (later wife) vigorously, and designing a Monkey House for the Philadelphia Zoo… an Architecture Major thesis project at U Penn which was rejected.  I considered the whole idea a triumph of wit. Anyway he told me he had arranged to have the Army deliver his Stella to our house on Park Street in Montclair, and that he was giving it to me….. Delirious Joy!!!

 

After many weeks of wondering where the bike was, even suspecting it was lost in chaos of US Army shipping, a large tractor/trailer truck pulled up in front of our house at 190 Park Street in. A couple of guys pulled out an enormous seemingly bulletproof wooden crate with US Army markings… and addressed to me. They wheeled it on a hand truck to near the front door and we attacked the box with crow bars and hammers undressing the package to reveal The STELLA.

 

It was truly a marvel! … a beautiful red Stella Touring Bike (similar to the one pictured above) featuring 8 speed derailleur gears, an innovation of French cyclery engineering advanced for the time, which turned many scratching heads in Montclair in 1956. My previous bike was a Rudge English touring bike with 3 speeds internal gears encased in the hub of the rear wheel hub. These English bikes were especially popular with the kids and adult riding enthusiasts of Montclair, and I dare say most of America at the time.

 

They paled in comparison with The Stella. There was nothing like this marvel of French innovation. I rode it with pride for many years, in town from the Montclair High/George Inness JHS complex to Woodman Field, to the Watchung Plaza flagpole, to Bonds ice cream parlor in Upper Montclair where folks rode bikes and cars to boast about their rides in the parking lot, to all over Essex County. My Stella with the derailleur gears never failed to draw attention, even awe mostly. Heads turned when I rode by. I smiled with pride as I explained the derailleur concept.

 

Jim, now gone, bequeathed his last bike to his Grandson-in-Law, my Great Nephew-in-Law Jon Conlon a few years ago…. I was there, a quiet witness to the transaction. I hope Jon is enjoying it exploring mountain roads of Colorado and that he and CJ’s daughter Ariana will pass on their bicycle passion to sons Bear and Rex.

 

And I’m confident CJ’s older daughter Jessica and husband USN Aviator Cmdr. Erik Smith will pass on Jim’s love of bikes and boats and adventure to sons Levy, Colton and Wyatt. Jim got to sail his own boat with his great grandson, Levy, at the helm a few years ago…. Jim radiated pride.

 

Levy & Big Jim cruisin’ Rehoboth Bay, circa Summer 2011

Our Family has enjoyed vignettes like this for years. I put pen to paper here to codify them into something like the germ of a Saga. Perhaps you’d like to contribute your own memories. Memories are flawed and subjective so I’ll not argue the pristine validity of what I recount here. These are my memories. I own them with dubious accuracy. I’d welcome the chance to read yours.

Love, David

 

 

You can respond to David through this website.

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Navy Racks

David writes:

As those of us MHS 60 classmates remaining prepare for Life’s Ultimate Reward, such as has already reaped by many of us, I know we look back on our well-worn paths with joy and sorrow for our deeds and shortcomings. I wish to inject a note of levity into our memories from mine.

Avoiding the draft during a lapse in my academic achievements in 1964, I joined the US Navy on July 27th, two weeks before the Tonkin Gulf Resolution…. Talk about timing. A couple of months later, I found myself at sea in the North Atlantic. Here’s one of my recollections:

 

I saw my first USN sea duty in the fall of 1964 on USS Courtney  (DE1021) as a FTSN (Fire Control Tech) striker. Fox Division (guns, my division) and First division (deck apes, Bosn’s Mates) bunked in the forward end of this relatively small (at 300’ LOA, almost  tiny by USN standards), which offered remarkable challenges to just walking around (to say nothing about eating and sleeping and doing your job) when at sea in rough weather.

The USS Courtney

 

Our racks were stacked 3 high throughout our berthing compartment situated (under the forward duel 3”50 gun mount in the picture above) just aft of the peak locker serving as Bosn’s Locker. My rack was the top rack near the ship’s centerline, so it was relatively comfortable when the ship rolled. But when she pitched it was a different story. Being so far forward we enjoyed the full benefit of the violent pitching motion of a small ship when steaming into heavy seas. 

 

I was a high jumper (though not a very good one) on the MHS track team in the late 50s. So when assigned that top centerline bunk when I reported aboard Courtney, I decided to use my developed high jumping skills, employing the Texas Roll technique (I think it was called - predecessor to the Fosbury Flop) to launch myself from the deck into my berth, rather than the usual mundane and accepted climbing technique employed by my shipmates. I thought myself innovative.

 

This practice served me well when in port or in mildly pitching situations. In fact I soon learned I could use the ship’s pitching motion to assist my sack time leap. The upward thrust supercharged my jump, taking advantage of upward inertia for assistance. I’d carefully time my leap for moments just before when Courtney crested on a wave and began to sink into the trough behind the wave. As the deck went down, inertia would take over and I’d gracefully (or so I thought) land in my rack. This worked well in the gentle motion of the ship in moderate seas. I even bragged about my technique to my shipmates and gave demonstrations.

 

But not so much in heavy seas. One day at sea in November of ‘64 off the coast of the Carolinas, Courtney found herself weathering a tropical storm in the Gulf Stream, bouncing about somewhat erratically. I came off my 4 to 8 lookout watch topside pleased to get below out of the weather. I prepared myself for bedtime and positioned myself for my berthing leap.

 

I timed my jump up perfectly with the rising motion and sailed up to my rack on the wings of inertia, but then she crested and the ships bow went down and I continued soaring, crashing into the overhead (the ceiling on a ship) and started to descend just as the bow started up again and I smashed violently into the deck. Bruised but nothing broken I climbed gingerly into my rack.

 

This was the last time I employed my famous Bunk Leap technique. From this time forward I used accepted customary techniques for mounting my bunk throughout my Navy career. 

 

There’s a lesson in here somewhere, even a wise saying or aphorism…… something like, “The tried and true, is well tried and so true.”

Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

David Appleton

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Here's a terrific (!) story about the youthful adventures and indiscretions of our master storyteller, David Appleton and his band of co-conspirators. Don't miss it!

DRY ICE BOMB

by David Appleton

It was sometime around 1950-51 when a bunch of us kids found a pile of dry ice in the street in front of the Watchung Plaza Delicatessen in Montclair, NJ.  We were generally ok kids, but ne’re do wells in the eyes of Lieutenant McHugh (?) of Montclair’s Juvenile Squad based on Chestnut Street (some of us were repeat offenders).  We were quite mischievous and thoroughly enjoyed all things explosive.

 

So we viewed this mound of dry ice a valuable find with some worthy potential.  We weren’t sure what, but gathered it up, carefully, avoiding touching it with our bare hands (I’d already suffered a blister on my left hand due to careless touching of this stuff). Bagging it carefully in a paper bag, we took it home to my house a block or so away on Park Street.

 

Once there, we explored its potential near Tony’s Brook, a minor Montclair waterway that originates near Edgemont Pond and passed my Park Street backyard near Essex Way on its way downstream to the Montclair High School Amphitheatre then south on Park Street and beyond. 

 

One test involved immersing a chunk in water and watching it: It smoked with a weird smoke that went down instead of up, the way most smoke from fire entered the atmosphere. It seemed to expand.

 

Next we took a chunk and confined it in a capped bottle with water. It did expand indeed and pushed the cap off the bottle. EUREKA!  We had discovered the veiled potential in our find. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide and turns directly back into a gas as it heats up. When you submerge dry ice in water, it heats up quickly and produces a thick smoke…and as a gas, it expands! In later life as a theatrical producer and director I used this characteristic as a dramaturgical special effect.

 

A plan ensued quickly. We agreed on a worthy method to create an explosion, a large bottle 25% filled with water and dry ice, using the remainder of our “mother lode” gathered on Watchung Avenue. This brew would fill the remaining 75% of the bottle with expanding gas eventually blowing it apart. 

 

So we found a large glass jug, perhaps two gallons or so. It had a screw-on cap, so it had explosive potential. We began chunking up our dry ice treasure and feeding it all into the jug. It was ready for priming.

 

Next we thought about a worthy POE (Point of Explosion). Someone came up with the idea of the High School. Several of us had enjoyed exploring sewer pipes throughout the town for years. Montclair High School had several large sewer pipes running under the gyms on the north side. We knew these underground pipes well, having ventured into them several times, using various vocal and other sound sources to explore the ambient echoes, and thought them an ideal POE since they would further confine the explosion and perhaps maximize the impact.

 

We were confident the explosion would provide minimal damage but maximum auditory impact since these sewer pipes ran all over town.

 

We were not disappointed.

 

We prepared the bomb and worked our way down Tony’s Creek through the backyards along Park Street and Midland Avenue, suffering a few “soakers” (slipping a foot into the water) along the way. 

 

Once at the mouth of the sewer pipes at the High School’s north end, we added water and sealed the bottle using waxed paper under the tightened screw cap. We then made our way quickly into the largest pipe and carried the bottle deep as we dared into the depths of the sewer. We got pretty deep into the network, deepest I remember going, and deposited our burden there. We then ran as quickly as we could toward the mouth of our tunnel.

 

We had no idea how long our explosive bottle would take to blow, nor how loud or violent the explosion would be…. So we ran through the tunnel (a 6’ diameter pipe) as quickly as we could with flashlights ablaze. Once emerging into daylight, we continued running north on Tony’s Brook, soakers bedamned, to get far from the expected explosion, and probable blame.

 

We were almost to my house some 15 or so houses upstream from the High School when the “EVENT” happened……  VARROOOOMMMMM!!!!!

 

It echoed through the sewer system all over town with remarkable volume and auditory definition and geographical resonance. We were awed/shocked at first then vastly amused. We started laughing uncontrollably.

 

Then, less than 5 minutes later, the sirens started all over town. This only enhanced our amusement, rolling on the ground laughing…. But then we thought of our potential jeopardy. So we continued running to my house and hid in the basement for a couple of hours. The sirens continued. We muffled our laughter.

 

I don’t recall any news reporting on this event in The Montclair Times,… but then again I didn’t read it regularly at that age, and I certainly didn’t want to draw attention to my potential implication in this explosion by asking about it. So I kept mum as did my fellow conspirators.

 

Such was our Dry Ice Bomb Event. Thankfully no one was injured and the only damage was a bunch of shards of glass in the sewer under Montclair High School, & perhaps Montclair Police Force’s mystification and embarrassment.

 

But those of us involved in the formulation and execution of this event still enjoy a hearty laugh as we recall the sound of the explosion and the sirens that followed, even 60+ years later. 

 

David Appleton, 9/13/2022

dwapple@verizon.net

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My Insurance Imbroglio

By David Appleton

 

On Thursday January 5, 2023 at about 9:30 pm I hit a deer with my 2019 Toyota Highlander on Route 179 about 2 miles North of Lambertvile, NJ while driving a paying passenger from Newark Airport to Lambertville.  I wasn’t going very fast, no one was hurt, the car remained drivable so I continued on and delivered my client to her home.  The damage was minimal but proved expensive, in excess of $3000.  I had the damage appraised by several body shops and learned deer strikes will not affect premiums.  So I made a claim to my provider, USAA.

 

After several exchanges with USAA they denied my claim because I was driving with a paying passenger.  I was flabbergasted.  I had told USAA I was driving for pay with LYFT and for myself when we initiated our policy for this car, two others and our home.  I paid extra for the rideshare coverage…. BUT I misread or misunderstood the coverage.

 

After much phone time with USAA my wife, Wendy (far superior to me at this sort of thing), was guided to understand the nature of our coverage, which was considerably less than I had assumed.  It seems our USAA insurance covered something called a “gap” which covered me when “on line and driving for LYFT on the way to pick up a LYFT passenger.”  Once I had that passenger on board LYFT insurance covered me. Once I dropped off the LYFT passenger, insurance coverage reverted to my private coverage with USAA.  That’s my understanding (perhaps not totally accurate, Insurance can be mystifying) of the USAA coverage.

 

Achieving this understanding I remained flabbergasted….and saddled with a $3K+ repair bill. But now I waxed TERRIFIED!  I realized that for 6 years of driving folks in around my neighborhood to meet their trains and planes or Hospital appointments and to get them home from their adventures I HAD BEEN DRIVING FISCALLY NAKED-----UNINSURED!!!!  One bad accident could possibly bankrupt me and my family.  We could loose everything.

 

This deer strike proved fortunate.  I returned to the scene of the encounter on route 179 to see this deer again to thank him for providing this new understanding while causing minimal damage.  He was unavailable.  No carcass at the point of impact; he must have escaped.  I hope he’s doing well.

 

So I scrambled to get insurance to get myself covered for doing what a truly like doing,… helping folks get to where they need to be and enjoying their company and conversation  on the way while earning a few bucks to fuel this enterprise.  USAA was unable to provide what I needed and sent me to Progressive, who provided adequate commercial coverage for only $5,000.00 a year.

 

YIKES!  This is around 20 to 23% of my gross for the year.  But I guess it’s a reasonable price to pay for doing what I enjoy and keeping busy in my retirement while serving my neighbors.  I enjoy life, both my own and others!

 

2/10/2023

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David Appleton remembers two women with great affection:

Aunt Elsie Reed and Miss Ardella Watts Bondurant

 

Aunt Elsie Reed

A personal Favorite

 

In the fall of about of 1957 or 1958 I got thrown out of Montclair High School for some long forgotten infraction. I experienced expellation (a word?) from school countless times for many reasons during my thoroughly tarnished academic career at Watchung through GI and MHS. This time I was expelled and told not to come back until I brought my parents with me. 

 

This was a problem since my parents were off in Canada or Florida on a well deserved 2 week vacation, leaving me and our elderly Park Street roomers in the care of our housekeeper, Ardella Bondurant. My parents had just left, so I could not expect to return to school for at least 2 weeks!  I couldn’t bring Ardella to school as my advocate since she was black and I didn’t think Mr. Boyd, Assistant Principal, ICD (In Charge of Discipline), would consider her a reliable executioner of punishment. He would have been correct since Ardella was a wonderful friend as well as my surrogate parent in this situation. She would prove a magnificent defense attorney.

 

So I thought about this dilemma a bit and came up with a plan to ask Aunt Elsie Reed to act as my surrogate parent for this situation. This was not an easy decision since I knew Aunt Elsie to be fierce in her belief in justice and unlikely to spare the rod.

 

We were a close family in those days. Aunt Elsie was the youngest of 4 Appleton siblings living in close proximity in Montclair, NJ between South Mountain Avenue and Park Street in the 40’s and 50’s. there were three sisters: Anita Baker, Marion Volz and Elsie Reed.  My father, Charles J. Appleton Jr. was third in this sibling parade.  Elsie, the youngest, was, I thought, the most likely candidate to pry me off the horns of this dilemma, even though I knew she was tough and it would cost me dearly in some way.

 

I screwed up my courage, picked up the phone and called her. She was furious and directed her ire at me for bringing such shame on the family. Nevertheless, appreciating the value of my education, she accompanied me to school and into Mr. Boyd’s office to get me reinstated. There she was acquainted with the compendium of my infractions, which were many. The latest of these, the cause for my dismissal, was extremely petty.

 

Thus Aunt Elsie perceived it and was appropriately (I think) outraged by the audacity of Mr. Boyd and the school for throwing me out for such a minor offense.

 

Aunt Elsie, enraged, was up off her chair swiftly and laying into the astonished Mr. Boyd with a spirited diatribe, the content of which I wish I could remember. But the fierceness of her finger pointing lecture and Mr. Boyd’s wide-eyed shock was unforgettable. I watched with jaw dropped in amazement, followed by a rush of familial pride. Ate that moment Aunt Elsie Reed became my “Most Favored Aunt.” I wished I had a medal to pin on her.

 

I was allowed back into school. Elsie told my parents of the event, coloring me in a more favorable light than I deserved. And Ardella and I shared laughs and beers over this memory years later.

Fun times!

 

MISS ARDELLA WATTS BONDURANT

A Rememberance

 

As a child I was fond of admonishing folks speaking to or of Ardella, saying, "She's 'Our' Della, not 'Your' Della!!!"….. a nice distinction.

 

Miss Ardella traveled north to New Jersey from Henderson, NC as a teenager in the early '30s to work as a domestic for several families including mine. Her life was not easy in the South and wasn't that much better in the North. But she persevered, working hard with characteristic Faith and good humor as best I could tell. And she helped her family find better prospects there.

 

She came to work as housekeeper for my parents, Anna Winter Appleton and Charles J. Appleton Jr, in the '40s, just after WW II when they started a boarding house for older women in Montclair, NJ.  Among her duties was riding herd on me, a particularly cantankerous 4-year-old child through teens, and organizing what my father called "the wrecking crew" consisting of Ardella with sisters Edna and Bunch and others to storm through the house each spring and fall leaving the place spotless.

 

She remained with our family, actually a part of it, through the 60's until my mother retired and sold that house and business in 1968. Ardella found work elsewhere but always remained in contact with our family, even after she retired and moved to Chase City, VA.

 

Miss Ardella visited us on several occasions over the years… Perhaps the most memorable was at the 1991 wedding of my brother Jim's oldest daughter Karin to David Magness which featured a reception at the prestigious Congressional Country Club in Potomac, Maryland. Ardella was an honored guest and I enjoyed dancing with her and observing her telling fortunes. She was in her glory with her other family.

 

In recent  years our visits have been by phone,… though not perfect, somewhat satisfying.  She enjoyed talking about her friends in Chase City, and especially her Church, The House of Prayer, and the close ties she made with that congregation.

 

My big brother Jim passed away at 80 last February which saddened Ardella along with the rest of us. My nephew David Magness delivered the eulogy for Jim, mentioning prominent figures in his life. Ardella  was chief among these.

 

Miss Ardella has been a major influence in my life, from my formative years into adulthood as a caretaker, then friend and confidant. I'm most grateful for her abundant wisdom and good humor which she offered most generously. I know all her friends and family in VA and elsewhere share in this.

 

So she really is All of Ours, "Our Della."  And we are all blessed for having known and enjoyed her love.

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David sent this photo from our last reunion.  He is seen here with his "best friend through school, 2nd grade and cub scouts and on, Barry Hampton."

David R. Appleton

2469 North River Road

New Hope, PA  18938

dwapple@verizon.net

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy