A BICYCLE IN A TREE

News reports via radio, TV and the daily paper inform us there is an epidemic of bikes stolen in Chico. I believe the last statistic I read was the loss of one bike each day. That may sound like a drop in the bucket but in a town our size, that’s disturbing news.
The thefts are mainly thought to be by transients and the homeless. although I don’t know if any has been caught in the act or arrested.
However, we have seen men riding small bikes meant for children, riding girls’ bikes, and one day saw a man pulling alongside him another bike as he rode down Main Street.
But the most astonishing sight my husband and I witnessed as we were walking one evening in our neighborhood park was a van that stopped next to a curb adjacent to some trees, and a man got out and reached up into the branches of one from which he pulled out a white bicycle! The man wasn’t bothered that we had seen him in the act and even greeted us with “how ya doing?” We have no proof it wasn’t his, but I told my husband it appeared suspicious that a person would know there was a bike stored in the tree. I surmised it had been stolen and hidden in the branches tree for pick up later. Who knows, perhaps he used the van to pick up other bikes hidden in trees!