The stories this bicycle could tell.
Some 30 years after the Schwinn delivery bicycle was stolen from its rightful owner in Portland, Kentucky, it's back in the family home again.
The bike belonged to John Eaton, known locally as “The Bicycle Man,” and was as well-known around town as Eaton. Columnist Bob Hill at the Louisville Courier Journal writes that Eaton's name was painted on the bike, which carried a large wire front basket, a rear-view mirror, a bell and a squeeze horn.
He used the fat-tire Schwinn to make deliveries for a local grocery store and later printing company. When the printing company went out of business he had to change jobs and died in 1998.
A few weeks ago, Hill reports that one of Eaton's brother got a phone call from someone in the old neighborhood who had seen the bicycle at a swap meet at the Kentucky Exposition Center.
The next day they searched and found it again. The owner said he had bought it at a swap meet in Paoli, Kentucky. The two bought it for $250, and gave it as a gift to another one of Eaton's surviving siblings, his sister Shirley Eaton Silva. Writes Hill:
“At the appointed hour, Silva was led into a room where the bike was waiting.
“Oh, my God … Oh, my God,” Silva repeated as she walked into the room. She put her hand over her heart, looked up toward the ceiling, then climbed onto the bicycle.”
She had recognized it instantly. In spite of the bicycle's long journey, it looked just about the same.
I love stories like this. I just wish John Eaton could have been the one to get his bike back.
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