Jake’s Infamous Jailbreak

Written by D.W.

77 years old

Punxsutawney, PA

Growing up in the l950’s in a very small town in western Pennsylvania was filled with numerous unique experiences.

Our town was ruled by a strict District Judge, “Keppy” whose regulations were both classic and quirky. Downtown, boys could not go shirtless and girls could not wear shorts. At that time, boys would not think of wearing shorts. Rules for riding bicycles were unbelievable and laughable by today’s standards. Penalties existed for riding on the sidewalk, riding at night without using a light, riding double and also for coasting through a stop sign.

     The jailhouse was where your bike would spend a week or two when it was caught breaking one of these directives. My bike, Jake, spent many, many days in the lock-up along with my best buddy John’s bike, Jessie. One summer Jake and I rode together for only about ten days due to numerous infractions in which we were involved.

     The jailhouse was a square brick building approximately twenty feet by twenty feet. It had a wooden door with a padlock on the outside. The inside of the jail consisted of a twenty foot long foyer and two barred lockable cells.

Jake was spending the last night of a two week stent sitting in the foyer when the town drunk, Bucky, was arrested and placed in one of the two cells to ‘sleep-off’ his drunken state. Since Bucky was highly inebriated , the constable saw no need to lock the cell in which Bucky was placed.  The constable planned to release Bucky in the morning after the alcohol wore off. 

Bucky woke up during the night and calculated that the only thing between him and his freedom was the jail’s thin wooden door. He took Jake and used him as a battering ram to break down the door for his escape.

I arrived in the morning with the constable and we found Jake to be a mangled mass of metal and rubber. I shouted to the constable, “You and this town have to buy me a new bike!”

When I excitedly told my mother the story and that I thought I deserved a new bike, she firmly stated, ’”Drop it, your bicycle should not have been there in the first place.”

So my days of riding Jake were over. I proceeded to work, beg, trade and finagle enough money to buy a second-hand bike which of course was inferior to my last buddy and partner-in-crime, Jake.