An Abandoned Bike Becomes my Ride

When I was at Stanford business school I ran out of money but I couldn’t drive around this 1934 Cadillac. The costs would eat me alive.

Then I noticed that there was an abandoned bicycle in a little forest on campus. It was lining up against the back of the building and I watched it for five months. It didn’t move. I took it home and got the license number and went down to the police department. I told them that I needed transportation and that there was an abandoned bicycle. I gave them the license number.

They wanted me to bring the bike in and they would confiscate it. But I told them: “no way! I am confiscating this bicycle! I need transportation.”

The police accepted that. When the end of my final year came around my dad had a friend whose nephew was attending the school for the deaf and blind. The kid was deaf.

My dad told me that the kid wanted a bicycle and that his uncle couldn’t buy it for him. He asked me to consider giving the kid my bike. I told him: “sure, with pleasure!”

I gave the bike to the kid and that was the end of the bicycle adventure.