Sticking Its Neck Out

 Go to any bike parking facility.  Among the many bikes chained and locked to the bars and post, there's always one that stands out.

Stealing, And Recovering, A Memory Of Him

Yesterday I wrote about Kevin Hebert, the disabled US Air Force veteran whose specially-made bike was stolen--and, thankfully, recovered. In telling about his ordeal, I paraphrased Tom Cuthbertson, who wrote that stealing a bike from someone is one of the lowest things one human can do to another.

That got me to thinking about the question of whether some bike thefts and thieves are more depraved than others.  Almost anyone who rides a bike loves or depends on it--or both.  But some bikes, victims and methods of stealing provoke more disgust and outrage than others.

I'm thinking now about--are you ready for this?--the swiping of a "ghost" bike.  If you ride in almost any city, you've seen one:  painted entirely in white, usually with a sign commemorating a cyclist killed by a driver attached to it.  Of course, they're almost always locked to a signpost or other immobile object.  Even so, they aren't invulnerable to pilferage.  

Such a fate befell the "ghost bike" left at the corner of 134th Street and Pacific Avenue in Parkland, Washington.  Nearby, at 134th and State Route 7, 13-year-old Michael Weilert was crossing on his bicycle in July when a someone drove into the crosswalk and struck him.

As if losing her child weren't bad enough, Amber Weilert  went by the intersection, as she often does, and "was shocked to see it wasn't here" after someone cut the locks and absconded with the memorial to her son.

Fortunately for her, and her family and community, an employee at a local scrap yard recognized the bike and returned it to Weilert's family.

So...while stealing one bike might or might not be worse than stealing another, it's hard to think of a more morally bankrupt bike theft than that of a disabled veteran's wheels--or a "ghost" bike.

The Heroes In A Veteran's Story

One hundred four years ago today, the treaty to end "the war to end all wars" was signed.  For years after that, this day was known as Armistice Day.  Then it came to be Remembrance Day, as it's observed in much of the world.  But here in the US, it's Veterans' Day.

Now, I have nothing against a day to commemorate veterans.  This might sound counter-intuitive, but as I've become more anti-war,  I have become more pro-veteran.  Whether or not the cause was right--which, in recent wars, means whether or not the war was based on any sort of fact or truth--no veteran should ever want--especially if that veteran was disabled in any way as a result of serving in the armed forces.

Forty-four years ago, Kevin Hebert was 19 years old and in the Air Force.  The latter would change when he suffered a broken neck, which left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Eventually, he learned to walk with leg braces.  Then he took on another challenge:  riding a bike again. 

Perhaps not surprisingly (though it may have been a disappointment to him), the Wilmington, North Carolina resident wasn't going to ride a bike like mine or, probably, yours.  Yes, it's propelled only by his feet spinning pedals.  And, at first glance, it looks like a recumbent; it differs in that it has three wheels.  But its most distinguishing trait might be the grip bars that allow him to get into or out of the seat by himself.  He was adamant about having that feature which, he says, "is independence for me."

Well, if in the immortal words of Tom Cuthbertson, stealing a bike is one of the lowest things one human can do to another, stealing a bike (or anything) from a disabled veteran drops someone a rung lower in Dante's Hell. You can tell that Hebert, even after what he's been through, isn't a cynical New Yorker like me:  He assumed that someone "borrowed" the bike.

His faith in humanity may have been well-placed after all:  Someone spotted the bike, returned it--and refused the reward Hebert offered. Oh, and the cops found the perp who took his bike.

Kevin Hebert isn't being immodest when he says he's "accomplished a lot."  That's why I am happy that he got his bike back, not only because it's his bike, but for what it's allowed him, as a disabled veteran to accomplish.  I don't know him, but I suspect he, being the veteran he is, would say that he's not the, or even a, hero in this story.

By the way, today is the 100th birthday of the author who wrote one of the best novels about a soldier's experience in World War II--and of PTSD, although nobody was calling it that when the book was published.   I'm referring, of course, to one of the first writers I fell in love with (as a writer, that is): Kurt Vonnegut, whose Slaughterhouse Five was published in 1969.