Saying Goodbye to An Old Friend

Yesterday I said goodbye to an old friend. This buddy of mine was with me from my later days in elementary school all the way through high school when I got my license. For the past 16 years, this pal has hung out in the garage.

I had two bikes growing up as a kid. The first one was a Sears brand dirt bike. It was black and I rode the wheels off of it. At some point in the 4th or 5th grade, I saved up some money and bought this gently used (it was at the time) blue Schwinn from a friend of a friend. I trekked a ton of miles on it. I only wish I had an odometer on it to see just how many. In my mind, I would imagine that I put, literally, 10,000 miles on it. My ride from the old house to school was ten miles alone and then the ride to Jeff's (my best friend) was another five miles on top of that. Since I hung out at his house all the time, I was putting 30 mile round trips on that thing regularly.

...at least, that's what I thought. Earlier this year I went back and looked up exactly how many MILES I was traveling to school. It turned out to be a little less than a half of a mile. That trip to Jeff's might have been a mile--maybe.

But who cares how many miles I put on this bike. It was a great bike. I kept it hanging in the garage of our new house from the time we moved in, convinced that someday I'd clean it up and give it the respect it deserved, but yesterday I finally threw it into the van and took it to Goodwill. I hope someone enjoys it.