Found objects

I found an object this week and kept it. Redeemed it. Saved it. Prevented its being hauled to the landfill and dumped ignominiously into a trash heap. Buried with so much moldering and smoldering refuse. *The object was lying next to a dumpster in an alley near an apartment complex. I walked past it on the way from my work to the Family Dollar store. Also strewn nearby were several old tires and a broken bookcase. *The object was an old mountain bike that someone had cheaply spray painted. Miraculously there was still air in the tires. I got onto the bike and rode it to the store. On the way back I saw three employees from Drug Emporium throwing stuff away in that dumpster. I asked them if the bike was theirs. They said no, that someone had thrown it away. "I'm going to keep it then," I said. "Have fun," one of them replied. And I have. A couple of days ago during my lunch break I rode over to Austin Elementary to check on the progress of the remodeling job. Austin - where I started my teaching career in 1977. * I love bike riding. I ride my bike at home almost every day. I love the forward motion feel of cranking the pedals and experiencing the speed that is faster than running, the wind whistling past your ears, and the tires singing over the pavement. And it is nice now to have a bike here at work that I can take for a spin whenever I want. Also there is a satisfaction, a sweetness, in making use of something that others have rejected. * In the last school paper of my high school senior year the staff made predictions for all of the seniors; predictions as to what each person would be doing ten years from now. For me they said "Kregg will still be riding his bike." They predicted well, because 34 years later it is still true.