Easy Go, Easy Come

   One of the advantages of living in a city is the possibility using a bike as a primary means of transportation.  This has been true for my husband, who cycles a round trip of about 14 kilometres to his job every day that the roads are not covered in ice and snow.  He bought a used road bike when we first arrived in the city and used it until we received an interesting telephone call from the Pinery Provincial Park.

   A few months before we had spent almost a week at the Pinery and participated in the “One Park Challenge.”  The challenge was to park your vehicle once, at your camp site, during your stay and either walk or bike to wherever you needed to go inside the park.  In a park greater than 6,000 acres in size this was no small feat.  When we left, a ticket was put into a draw for a new adult bike.  This phone call told my husband that he had won this prize.

   He donated his other bike to a local non-profit group, which helps low-income people obtain a good form of transportation.  This fall, after about one year of using the new bike, he discovered it had been stolen from his workplace, the lock destroyed by bolt cutters.  First there was shock, which gave way to appreciation.  Within 24 hours, a friend brought over a bike he could borrow for as long as he needed it and a co-worker gave him a bike he could keep.

   It can be easy to be bitter about things like this and resignedly say, “Easy come, easy go.”  We chose to see this, rather, as a situation where the generosity of friends trumped thievery.