A genre label for the CLIFFSIDE CHRONICLES is “Kids on Bikes,” which I attempt to explain a bit below.
September 14, 2024
The “Kids on Bikes” genre is probably best and most easily defined by the first wave of classic Eighties Kids-on-Bikes films, i.e., E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTIAL (1982), BMX BANDITS (1983), THE GOONIES (1985), STAND BY ME (1986), THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987), and – slipping in just under the wire – STEPHEN KING’S IT (1990).
More recent examples include SUPER 8 (2011) as well as what I consider the genre’s finest hour (or, more accurately, hours), the Netflix series STRANGER THINGS (2016-present), the fifth and final season of which is slated to air in 2025.
Such stories – whether told in print on celluloid – are always about a group of kids of mixed ages embarking on coming-of-age journeys together, usually while riding around on bikes. Even if they can drive (which can be different from having a license), the same spirit applies. Sometimes, the journey can be undertaken on foot (as in STAND BY ME), via boat (as in THE ISLAND, Book 1 of the CHRONICLES), or even a cobbled-together, geek-crafted spaceship (1985’s EXPLORERS).
The journey always involves some kind of adventure, very often – but not always – involving fantasy, supernatural, or science fiction elements. In the CHRONICLES, we’re dealing squarely with the supernatural.
Bikes – whether it’s your Dad’s big old battered Schwinn you learned to ride on or a brand spankin’ new Stingray in metallic gold paint with a banana seat and a sissy bar – allow kids to go where adults wouldn’t, places where their curiosity can get the best of them (or worse), and surely – as in the CHRONICLES – where angels fear to tread. And for good reason, as each book … chronicles.
Socio-culturally, the 80s were perhaps the last decade in which kids were generally allowed to roam on their own, as well as being largely free of the increasing number of technological distractions that more or less would keep subsequent generations largely house-bound, from video games to home computers to the Internet and social media.
That said, the 1970s, in which all six CLIFFSIDE CHRONICLES novels are set, were the high water mark of kids on bikes. Once school got out for those seemingly endless summers, kids could leave the house after sunrise and come back when the streetlights came on. Kids on bikes in those days had pretty much total freedom to explore one’s surroundings. There was no digital refuge. Refuge came in the physical form of tree houses and forts, or a basement or garage. The CHRONICLES kids listened to AM radio and watched horror movies on TV, in many times on a black and white set with rabbit ears. They communicated on walkie-talkies unmonitored by adult ears. They built Aurora monster models and read scary books on rainy days. But when the sun was out, they were out for the better part of 12 hours, fueled by a bowl of cereal or a slice or two of cinnamon toast. Rarely would they return for a grilled cheese and a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup whipped up by Mom before she returned to her afternoon “stories.”
Kids rode to the rat-a-tat-tat sound of baseball card commons clothes-pinned to the spokes of their wheels. Poor Pete Cimino of the California Angels; I probably went through three or four of his cards in those days. They pumped their tires up for free at the gas station down the block. Cornwall-on-Hudson had one station that sold ice cold soft drinks (made with real sugar), ice cream, candy, and Hostess cupcakes and apple pies, the latter serving as the cornerstones of a nutritious 1970s lunch for kids out and about on bikes circa 1971. Washed down with grape or orange soda. No need to return home. And there was a natural spring on the way down to the Hudson River if you were thirsty and had run out of loose change.
And for the ages 12-16 set in the first half of the 70s, bikes were the ONLY practical way to maintain a connection with each other on a group level. We rarely called each other on the phone and never had long conversations. Squadrons of kids on bikes would form up not long after sunup, and the day’s adventures would be planned at a mutually agreed upon spot. In the upstate New York village in which the CHRONICLES’ are set, those places included the aforementioned spring, and a clearing in a patch of woods between the railroad tracks and the riverbank. Closer to home, we’d congregate at a retaining wall just around the corner that still bears the ancient scratch marks of our initials in the cement. Everyone in those days carried a jackknife or penknife in their pockets. Along with marbles, gum, a Superball, and sometimes a frog with a name like Ernie or Legs.
Those seemingly endless Julys and Augusts, while seemingly going on forever at times, were never boring. There was just too much to see and loads