Gift #5 - Bicycles

Hey.

Here's another gift I gave out as a child, and another story about my father.

During high school, my father owned several bicycle stores called SPOKES AND SPORTS.  The shops were located near run down bars and 99 cent stores. They never made much of a profit, but they gave my father several years of peace, working on his own terms.  We kids would work there when we weren't busy with school or other extra-curricular activities. 

I remember the grease and dirt. Carpets were matted and sticky with it. The smooth-talking meth addicts who smiled too easily and always hung around my father. The quiet, mumbling, lanky teen who was the only other employee who wasn't a family member.  He killed himself by sticking his head in the oven.

One Christmas, my father woke up the kids.  We headed to the store, and loaded up a dozen or so refurbished bikes.  Then, he revealed that he had been working with a local charity, finding families even worse off than us who wanted bicycles for Christmas.

We spent that morning traveling around the Central Valley, saw a lot of overwhelmed and teary kids.
My father never smiled as bright as he did that day.

He did well.