Rewarded For Her Advocacy

Every month, the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina gives its Golden Pen award.  The most recent recipient won for a letter on a topic that's too often ignored or reported in an uninformed way.  

Rebecca Vaughn of nearby Mount Pleasant and her husband are committed to depending entirely on their bicycles for transportation at least one day every week.  They are able to get around safely, she says, because of an established network of bike lanes in the town.  Once they venture out of their hometown, however, "the lack of safe spaces, particularly along the Highway 17 and 61 corridors is evident," she wrote.  

In her letter, she also notes that there is no safe way to cross the Ashley River by bicycle.  That is particularly frustrating, she writes, because in West Ashley, on the other side of the river, there are bike lanes that make it possible to navigate much of the town on two wheels.

In her letter, she noted that a bike-and-pedestrian bridge over the Ashley River would allow cyclists like herself and her husband to cycle from their homes, through downtown Charleston and into West Ashley and beyond.  This linkage would provide community benefits and help "unlock a piece of the puzzle that will allow residents and visitors to enjoy a safe transportation choice," she wrote. She concluded by urging her senators--Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott--to lead the effort to secure the necessary federal funds.

As part of the Golden Pen award, Ms. Vaughn will be invited to a luncheon with the Post and Courier editorial staff.  I assume she will ride to it.

A Thief Poses As A Manager

In my time, I've heard of people who impersonated doctors, lawyers and other learned professionals.  Hey, I even recall stories about someone else who posed as a Saudi prince and a guy who managed to pass himself off as a Rockefeller relative.

But a bike shop manager?

Folks who pretend to be doctors, lawyers, princes and Rockefellers managed to bilk people out of lots of money.  But the old joke about the bike industry is that if you can get into it, you can end up with a small fortune.  How?  Start off with a big one.

Also, I have to admit that as long as medical procedures or cases aren't botched, it can be pretty funny to watch an impostor hoist on his or her own petard.  The ersatz Saudi prince did himself in when, at dinner in a fancy restaurant with a would-be investor in one of his schemes, he ordered an appetizer of prosciutto.  The phony Rockefeller's scheme ended when one of his would-be investors wondered why he, if he was a Rockefeller, he spoke with a French accent.

They lived high while their schemes lasted.  But what bike shop manager ever got to date a Playboy model or live in Mickey Rourke's house? 

So why would someone pose as a bike shop manager?  To sell stolen bikes.  

That, according to Colorado State University police, is what 23-year-old Gordon Stone was doing when they arrested him.  He took photos of  bikes parked on the Fort Collins campus and posted them on the "Let's Go" app--with the name of John Lambert, who manages the Recycled Cycles shop near the campus.  

Someone would spot the photo of, say, a GT Transeo, and because Lambert's name and Recycled Bicycles were attached to it, assume it was legitimate.  When that person expressed interest in the bike, Stone would go to the campus, cut the lock and sell the bike for a fraction of what it would cost in the shop.



Lambert found out about the scheme only when a friend texted him to ask whether he was still selling a certain bike--the Transeo--online.  "I responded with, what?" he recalls.  

He says that Stone's actions have hurt the shop's, and his, reputation.  Now that Stone has been arrested, Lambert says he may pursue defamation charges against him.  After all, the reason what do a shop and its manager have besides their reputation?

A Bike Reunites Them

If anyone has ever given you a bicycle, you haven't forgotten it.  Even if the bike is long gone, you still have a memory of the person who gave it to you--especially if you were very young when you were so gifted.

That memory can be a very powerful force--enough, it turns out, to reunite you, a quarter-century later, with the person who gave you the "freedom machine." 

The power of that memory is intensified if you are a small child in a foreign country where you and your parent are just learning to speak the language--and your homeland is in ruins.

When Mevan Babakar was five years old, she and her mother left war-torn Iraq on an odyssey that took them through Turkey, Azerbaijan and Russia before they arrived in the Netherlands.   A man befriended them while they lived at a refugee center in the city of Zolle. "My mum said the greatest thing he did was listen when nobody really treated you like a human," she recalls of the kind stranger.

Mevan Babakar as a child refugee in the Netherlands

After Babakar and her family moved out of the center, the man visited them and presented them with bicycles.  "I will never forget how joyous I felt," she explains.  "It's not about my bike, it's about my self-worth."

Eventually, she and her mother settled in London, where her father joined them.  They lost touch with the man.  (If you are young, remember that we are talking about a time before Facebook or most other social media.)  But, of course, she did not forget him.

Recently, she took a trip to re-trace her family's journey.  One stop took her to Zolle, where she hoped to find the man and thank him for his kindness.  After a series of dead-ends, she posted an old photo of her with the man on Twitter.  Arjen van der Zee, a volunteer journalist in the city, spotted it and recognized the man as a former co-worker in the center.  

He took her to a town about an hour away, just on the other side of the Dutch border with Germany.  The man--who wanted to be identified only by his first name, Egbert, believed his gesture "wasn't all that much to make a fuss about," but was "grateful that it brought us together again."

He's 72 years old now and is happy that his wish for Mevan Babakar came true.  "He was proud that I'd become a strong and brave woman."

I like to think that getting a bicycle had something to do with it.