The Banana Seat Bike

May 23, 2014

I put my camera away for a good long while. It wasn't really intentional, I just didn't feel like taking any photographs. But there was a shift and I started to see things again. I started to regret not having my camera with me. It still wasn't enough to motivate me to pick it up. It was just enough to get me thinking about it. This can happen from time to time. I sometimes forget how many wonderful things happen when I take out my camera. And I don't mean the photographs. They're just a nice side effect. Take the other night, for example. I took the 4H kids on a photography walk. The first thing that caught my eye was this bike. I've passed by that spot a million times but I've never noticed the bike before. I think all of Bridgewater heard me yell, "Check out that banana seat bicycle!" What photographer could pass up a couple of minutes with that beauty? While the group of us were on the front lawn, the owner of the lawn and the bicycle came home. I immediately ran over and introduced myself, explained who we were and what we were doing just to be sure we weren't making a nuisance of ourselves. It turns out that sixty years ago, at the age of eleven, this woman got her first bicycle. That bicycle. And on the last big garbage day she tried to put it at the curb but she couldn't find the key for the lock. So it's still there. Without my camera I would have missed out on it all. I would have missed the bicycle, I would have missed the story and I wouldn't have these photos to remind me of it all.