The Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun.
In earlier posts, I wrote about “bike libraries” as if they were some new, visionary idea. Turns out, someone created and operated one siglehandedly more than 40 years ago. And Charles Kuralt used that exact phrase to describe it.
The best part is that the man in charge—Jethro Mann, who died at 96 in 2013–wasn’t running it as a nonprofit organization. He did all of the work—from “rescuing” discarded bicycles, repairing them (or, sometimes, grafting parts from several bikes onto others), loaning them and keeping records (on paper) when kids took them out and returned them.
He also did something else that seemed revolutionary when organizations like “Recycle a Bicycle” started doing it about 20 years ago: He turned his space into a kind of community center where kids not only learned how to fix flats and other problems; they also showed kids younger than themselves how to do the same.
While doing all of that, hemodeled kindness and respect and expected his benefactors to do the same. He, whose day job was with the state of North Carolina, definitely would not have a place in the Trump Administration or the MAGA movement.
Oh, and while fixing bikes and helping kids—most of whom were poor and African-American—he wore overalls over a dress shirt and tie. And a fedora. When was the last time you saw that?
Whatever his age, he would have been in the middle of his life, and life itself. I would have loved to meet him, even as the snotty young thing I was.
