This article was originally published in the Lynn Haven Ledger as a human interest story in June, 2018.
The leaves, fluttering in the now cooling breeze with the sun dappling their faces, saw it there once again. But that was not unusual. It showed up there most days for a few minutes. The season changed and the rains started and the leaves, now old and heavy with water, let go of their branches and pirouetted to the ground, adding to the ever increasing layer of nature’s detritus on the woodsy floor, soggy and soft, muffling all sound except for the wind.
The next summer came and still it stood there. The trees didn’t mind. The squirrels and lizards, rabbits and neighborhood cats believing themselves to be dangerous predators, crawled, jumped, and climbed around, over, and through as it stood there patiently waiting for someone to return.
As years passed, the trees grew ever taller and greater in girth like older men who love to eat and hate to exercise. As each new season’s leaves looked on, the tree eventually absorbed much of the abandoned and forgotten bicycle now rusted through. Almost like the trees in Fangorn Forest that sucked the unsuspecting Hobbits inside their trunks to devour them whole. But there was no wizard in Lynn Haven to deliver the bicycle.
It was Wes’ bike. Back in 1986, Jeremy’s parents had built their house on a lot they’d recently purchased, and, as parents are wont to do, also put up a fence to not only keep neighborhood kids from using their backyard as a thoroughfare but to corral Jeremy’s younger brother who loved to wander. They included a gate so Jeremy’s good friend Wes could meet him in the morning and together they’d ride their bikes to school. The boys were both in 5th grade at the Lynn Haven Elementary school when they started journeying together.
The small copse of trees bordered the two properties, lending some privacy to each family’s backyard. The boys would meet at the fence in the mornings before school and, together, they would ride their bikes there and back again. Jeremy and Wes were good friends and continued their daily routine until they graduated to high school where it was too far to ride their bikes.
Life moved on for the boys who, 32 years later, have careers and friends and don’t remember much anymore about those daily rides to school. Or the whereabouts of Wes’ long forgotten bicycle.
I tried to interview the bicycle, but it was not in a mood for conversation. I’d love to hear its perspective on what it heard and observed as days turned to months and then years to decades.
I remember about five years ago traveling through Kentucky on Highway 31. We came to a sign that said “Prehistoric Indian Artifacts”, and I remember laughing out loud at such a silly attempt at marketing. Wes’ bicycle isn’t prehistoric, or buried treasure like you might dive for in Panama City Beach, and it doesn’t have any monetary value.
But it’s a pretty interesting thing to see. Two trees, instead of pushing a foreign object out of their way, instead patiently grow around it until the bicycle becomes an integral part of the landscape. It’s hard to see in the shade of the trees.
There’s certainly a life lesson here.
I have Facebook friends from Michigan where I grew up. They regularly complain about the weather, especially in the long and seemingly unending winters. I tell them, “pack up your crap and move down here”. But they always have an excuse. They’re kind of like that bicycle letting time and lack of ambition keep them stuck in a place they don’t really want to be, but the effort to change is greater than their dissatisfaction.
I think Wes’ bicycle would have preferred to have been kept inside a garage out of the elements and over time passed down to the next generation of adventurous children wanting a quicker way to get to where they wanted to go.
But, like I said, the bicycle refused to comment, so I can only speculate.
