personal

To the person who stole my bike tire, I hope it takes you far in life

/ slightlyreworded / 2 Comments

When I came home for lunch Wednesday, I noticed that the rear tire of my mountain bike was missing. The bike was locked to a rack outside my apartment, and I assumed the thief incorrectly thought that taking off the rear tire would free the rest of bike.

I’ve experienced worse thefts. In college, my car was broken into, and hundreds of CDs, expensive speakers and a CD player were stolen. Several years later, I made the mistake of leaving my work laptop in the backseat of my car overnight. An opportunistic passer-by armed with a brick shattered one of the rear windows and took the laptop, once again leaving me with a broken window to fix.

Those crimes I can somewhat understand. Used CDs, speakers, a laptop — all are easy to sell for some quick cash. But a used tire from a dirty mountain bike?

I went to the shop where I bought my bike to get an estimate for replacing the tire. Bummer man, was their response, in a nutshell. A new tire will set me back $150, and that’s if they don’t find anything else that’s broken.

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At least they left the front tire.


Reporting the theft to the cops seemed like a waste of a time, but a contact of mine who works in law enforcement advised me to do it anyway, on the off chance my tire turns up somewhere.
I called dispatch, and within 10 minutes an officer called to get my information. He took my name, number, address and asked what happened. No, I didn’t see it happen. No, I don’t have any idea who did it.

He didn’t ask for a description of the tire (it has a lime green stripe that makes it stand out), which seemed odd since there are a lot of mountain bikes in the Black Hills.

Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get called down to the police department one afternoon and they’ll roll in a bunch of tires confiscated from the streets. “Not it. Not it. Hmmm, maybe … Can you roll it closer, so I can see it under the light?”

So, to the person who stole my tire, enjoy it man. It probably needs some air so tread lightly, especially if you’re using it to build a unicycle. Those probably went out of style in 1916, but vinyl is cool again so you never know.

A full-time brother

/ slightlyreworded / 11 Comments

Growing up, my brother Billy and I shared a bedroom. We slept on a bed that folded into a futon. When we weren’t asleep or at school, he followed me everywhere. If I locked myself in a room, he’d try to pick the lock or figure out another way to get in.

I hated it at the time, being shadowed wherever I went. I was five and a half years older than Billy, and having your younger brother around was a liability. If I was with friends and we got into trouble and needed to run, he was usually the slowest in the pack. I felt like Billy was holding me back, sometimes literally.

But I also knew he needed me, and so when my friends weren’t watching I tried to teach Billy the difference between right and wrong, helped him with homework and showed him how to field a ground ball. I had to fill the void of our dad, who died when Billy was 4 and I was 10. Continue reading →

Gone, but still a part of the band

/ slightlyreworded / 19 Comments

I played the air piano while he played the guitar. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to my father, Dave, play music with his friends. I’d pretend to be a part of the band, imagining that the invisible instrument I was banging on made the collective sound of the guitar, bass and drums a little sweeter.

When my father wasn’t playing, I liked to march around our house in a trucker hat with his instruments. Once my younger sister, Valerie, became strong enough to carry a guitar, she became a part of the act. My parents probably found it amusing because there are several pictures of us posing side-by-side with his guitars, sometimes in our underwear.

My father, Dave, (right) singing with his friend Paul. (Photo courtesy of Doug Wolgat)

I could probably remember more about those days with my father if I hadn’t spent years trying to forget them. When he died in 1989 of an abdominal aneurysm at the age of 34, my mother, Vicki, took his pictures off the wall. His instruments were put in a closet. His clothes, in a shed. The songs he had recorded onto cassette tapes were also packed away, but sometimes at night my mother would slip outside and listen to them in her car. Continue reading →