Texas Bicycle Thief Wichita Falls Edition

That which you see here is what my eyes saw, and my sinking heart felt, about 5 o'clock Sunday afternoon.

Heading to ALDI, as I backed out of the carport, suddenly I knew there was something wrong with what I was seeing, or not seeing.

My bike.

In broad daylight on a Sunday afternoon, a week before Christmas Eve, a thief cut the what I thought was supposed to be impervious to such, that being the cable which secured my bike to a metal post.

Broad daylight.

This is now two stolen bikes in Texas. The first involved breaking into my van to steal the bike and try to steal the van. That was in October of 2010.

It was almost two years later I got another bike, March of 2012.

I think this latest bike theft may be the end of my bike riding years.

Such will also end my new position as the Wichita Falls Convention & Visitors Bureau Outdoor Adventure Guru. Well, this will end the bike part of the Outdoor Adventure Guru-ing.

I reacted with resignation to yet one more bike theft. I quickly went into sweet lemon rationalization mode, thinking maybe it was the excessive bike riding which was causing my right knee to ache. Three days later I have no pain in my right knee.

I also rationalized that anyone so brazen as to steal a locked bike in broad daylight must have needed, or wanted, a bike real bad. Maybe desperate to give their kid a Christmas present. Or needing a bike to get to a job, or some such thing. I would think one would have to have a good reason to steal something of relatively little value.

My first evening in Tacoma last summer we went to a neighbor's Annual Potato Chip Party, where I don't remember getting any homemade potato chips, but I do remember getting incredibly good chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven.

That and the next door neighbor's tale of having three mountain bikes stolen from his garage the day before. He had arrived home, opened the garage door, went into the house for a brief time, came back out to find the three bikes stolen. At the time I thought myself grateful to be currently living in a low crime location in Texas, much safer than my previous location in Texas, in Fort Worth, where I lived behind security gates, which did not prevent stolen bikes and auto thefts.

A couple days later I had David, Theo and Ruby's bikes on the front lawn, along with the bike I was to ride. My sister informed me it was not safe to leave the bikes on the front yard, unattended, even though there is a fence, due to the rapidity with which Tacoma thefts apparently take place. I thought my sister was over reacting. Now I realize it was I who was his usual level of clueless naivete.

There is an Italian movie, a neo-realistic classic from well over a half century ago, regarded as one of the best movies ever made.

The Bicycle Thief

From Wikipedia - The Bicycle Thief is a 1948 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film follows the story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.

This movie quite poetically shows the pain and troubles a bicycle thief can cause the victim....