I have often spoken of the camping trips my wife and I take in our RV. I think glamping is actually the way to describe it. Regardless of the terminology, it is a time to relax and unwind from the real world. I especially enjoy mornings when I can sit outside with my favorite camping chair and savor my coffee while listening to the natural surroundings.

During a recent trip, the serenity of one peaceful morning was somewhat interrupted when several children, and at least one adult, began riding by on what appeared to be electric scooters.

I know there is a name for these, but just what their technical name is, I do not know. Now before you think I'm just being a grumpy old man, hear me out: It wasn't that these folks were making a lot of noise because they were not.

But what caught my attention was the fact that, while these contraptions looked like the old-fashioned scooters of my day, they seemed to be completely motorized, I assumed battery powered. I am surely behind the times when it comes to such things.

I became more enthralled with these modern-day scooters, the more of them I saw that day. And it seemed no matter where I went in the campground, there were more of them.

I believe every young person in the place had one of these fancy scooters or a motorized bicycle of sorts. I began to wonder if any of them had ever experienced the manual scooter version or a real bike you pedaled with your feet instead of charging with a cord.

I suddenly was taken back to when I got my first bicycle. My brother and I got matching stingray bikes for Christmas one year. For those who may not know what I’m talking about, these bikes had high handlebars and banana seats. Ours were green with a metallic-looking seat color and a wider-than-normal back tire.

We thought they were the coolest, and while we had to wait out winter that year, once spring and summer arrived, we rode those things daily… and sometimes all day.

My favorite bike memory was the time we built ramps from unused wood in the garage and cinder blocks. We had just seen a show at a local county fair where professional drivers wowed the crowd with numerous stunts, including launching their cars through the air on ramps.

We thought we would do the same with our souped up stingray bikes! And we did. We must have jumped those bikes a thousand times, each time going faster and jumping higher. I had never had so much fun. Momma wasn’t too happy when she realized what we were doing, and it was by the grace of God, we didn’t break any bones. But we built a memory in those hot summer days that suddenly jumped back into my brain during our camping trip.

I do not advocate that anyone becomes a stunt driver on their bikes, especially with those electrical ones, but it was awfully nice to take a visit back to my boyhood riding those stingrays, down the backroads.