When I was 15 years old I had my bicycle stolen. I lived in a good neighborhood in the Bronx, so it was surprising to me that my bicycle would be taken. I had no clue who or why it was stolen. Up until that time I never thought that needed to lock it up.
After about a month or two I gave up all hope of ever seeing my bicycle again.
Having a bicycle in the Bronx was important. My parents didn’t own or drive cars, so if I needed to go anywhere locally it was either walking or bicycling. Unfortunately my parents couldn’t afford to purchase me a new bicycle. It was up to me to come up with the money. To do that I got a job delivering newspapers for the New York Post. It would take a while before I made enough money to buy a new bicycle.
It was about 3 months after the bicycle was missing that I found out what had happened to it. I was playing with my friends when a local boy named George came wandering by. He was 4 years younger than I was. I don’t know what made me do it, possibly it was the detective movie that I watched the night before, but before I could stop myself I pointed my finger at George and said, “You did it!”
There was no hidden meaning behind what I said. I was not really accusing him of anything. I certainly wasn’t prepared for his reaction. He said, “It was only a joke, I just took your bicycle and put in my backyard for a moment and then forgot about. I didn’t know my mother would turn it in to the police.”
It was an ethereal experience. Having this knowledge was great, but what next?
The next task was to track down the bicycle. After a number of phone calls and inquiries it was discovered that the bicycle was being stored in Brooklyn’s Police Lost and Found. All I had to do is go to Brooklyn and pick it up. No problem. Then again we owned no car…Big problem. There was no way to pick it up. That required a number of further calls. With much reluctance the police decided to help us by transporting the bicycle to their Bronx lost and found facility. Now the bicycle was in the Bronx, but in the East Bronx. We lived in the West Bronx. No problem if we have a car. Unfortunately that was the original problem and this time the police were not willing to make any more concessions.
I had heard that if you had a complaint against anything related to governmental organizations that you could write to the mayor of New York City. So write to the mayor I did. The end result of my letter writing was that the bicycle was delivered to my house.
From the time the bicycle had been taken until I got it back was about 6 months. Add to all that, I also had amassed a nice sum of money towards a new bicycle which I now did not need.
The story should end there, but it doesn’t. About 3 weeks after I got my bicycle back, it broke. It seemed that the metal crossbar that goes from the seat to the handlebars (which is only on boys’ bicycles) sheared in half. The bicycle was now in 2 halves, completely unrepairable. I can’t help but think that someone along the line of my complaining felt that to hacksaw part way through the crossbar would serve me right.
I finally bought the new 3-speed bicycle and kept it until I was in my 30s, when I bought a 21 speed hybrid bicycle, which I still own.
