ISHWORLD WEEKLY COLUMN/BLOG

September 26, 2026

885 words

Who knew backpacks and 10-speeds

 would become an adult “thang?”

By Ishmael-Lateef Ahmad

Columnist/Blogger-At-Large

I should be rich by now. But, I’m not and I know why.

One day, many moons ago, I wrecked a car trying to avoid killing a cat. For about a year afterward I hitch-hiked and rode buses to get from here to there. Then one day I had an epiphany. As a subscriber to a weekly alternative newspaper called The Boston Phoenix, I noticed that a lot of college students in Boston, Mass. were riding 10-speed bicycles and carrying all their gear in backpacks strapped to…their backs.

It took a minute but one day I connected the dots. I dusted off my old 10-speed bicycle in the basement, found my old Boy Scout backpack and I was off and riding, almost everywhere I needed to be. It was a stretch for me, a young and grown black guy riding a “kid’s” bike and striding around campus in jeans with a backpack on his shoulders, instead of the usual briefcase or gym bag that most black male students carried. 

At first it felt odd, a 20-something rolling the streets of St. Louis on a worn bicycle and with a faded brown and greenish colored backpack strapped to his back. I cursed that black cat for many days, but I humped on and rode to where I needed to be. If nothing else, I was saving up for another car and getting a lot of exercise to boot. I would rise again!

I trooped on, despite attempts from some drivers to run me – a grown-ass man on a youngster’s bicycle – off the road and laugh and yell catcalls as they sped by in their motorized vehicles.

At least I was not hitch-hiking anymore. 

It was the mid-1970s and people my age were too grown for bicycles, or so it would seem. Still, I peddled on, pretending I was in Boston or somewhere else along the East Coast.

One day, as I cruised between my job, junior college and my apartment, I saw another bicycler approaching. It was an older gray-haired black man, nimbly cruising the road, like myself. We made eye contact and in a flash we passed each other and that was that, or so it seemed. Over time, we passed each other again, and again and again. Just the two of us making sense of a crazy world. Finally, as we passed, we nodded, as if offering a greeting of respect and acknowledgement that we were on to something that others around town hadn’t figured out.

One day, I stopped riding my bicycle and prepared to move away to another college in another town. I had graduated junior college and transferred to another college in another state. I would eventually marry and begin raising a family. And yes, I got another car. Along the way a grown-up cousin asked if I still had my 10-speed in my mom’s basement. Yes! And you can have it! My biking days were finally over.

Also, years later, a friend from the old neighborhood saw me and offered his respect.

“You were the first person I knew who rode a 10-speed to get around and you had a backpack!” I seem to recall him saying. “Now, everybody’s rolling 10-speeds and backpacks. You were ahead of everybody. Who knew?”

In that moment, what he said hit me all the way to the gut. I knew I was solving a problem all those years ago but I didn’t think beyond the moment. Looking back, I could have done the research, monitored lifestyle trends and by the time the bicycle craze hit the midwest I could have been waiting with my bikes and backpacks, and all that goes with that. I could have been kind of rich! Certainly, I could have been better off than where I was decades later.

Anybody who spends some time watching patterns about what people buy and how they live, it is without a doubt time well spent.

Like I said, I believe I should have been rich by now. And it is not too late. All I have to do is keep my eyes, ears and brain open to what’s going on in the world and something will stick.

Instead of saying “I should be rich,” you can one day say, “This is what I did to become rich.”

Take Artificial Intelligence as another example. It was once a robotic cartoon fantasy for children (i.e. “The Jetsons”) and then later on the big movie screen in science fiction fantasy stories such as “Star Wars.” Today, AI is real, everywhere and is ushering humanity into a different, new world. Financial investments made when I was a kid are now paying off big time for those wise enough to see the future. 

It’s never too late to create, invest and get rich. If not for our generation, then for the generations to come. Draw the map and let them make the journey.

Sometimes our gifts are not what we complete but what we build for the next generations to take across the finish line.

(ISHWORLD: The International Search for Humanity is a complimentary column created and distributed to media by freelance journalist & blogger Ishmael-Lateef Ahmad. Based in St. Louis, Mo., he can be reached via ishworldcolumn@gmail.com or his website at https://payhip.com/ISHWORLDcolumns.)

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