An Unsung Hero

Hauling some of the parts Bob donated to the Collective.

 I had an experience the other day that started out with a crumpled, handwritten note that had been shoved through the door at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. N.Y. Roll, who is a board member there, found it when he stopped off there for some reason and he stuck it on my bench at the shop where I would find it. 

The author of the note, a Bob Beecher, of Waterloo, Iowa, had scribbled down a long list of bits and pieces of bicycles he had and wanted to donate to the Collective. I was somewhat interested, but not knowing anything about what specifically he had, I was not in a big hurry to get to that note and its author. But I did call, and Bob was eager to have me help him get these things out of his residence.

That's when I set up a time to meet him on a Sunny, early Fall day. Bob lives in an older home in a somewhat industrial area of Waterloo, tucked away in a corner, if you will. In fact, I hadn't even considered there might be homes in this nook of Waterloo. But, there were, and there was Bob's home as I pulled up in my old pick-up truck. Bob was already outside before I could get out of my seat. 

Bob is a thin, pale figure of a man with a scruffy white beard and a somewhat vagabond look about him. I pegged him to be in his late 60's, (he is actually 73 years old), and he looked to be in good health. He smiled and greeted me warmly and pointed with a long, bony, white finger to a pile of boxes and bags on his front steps. That was the stash of parts he was willing to donate for now. He said he was keeping some back to "...fix up my own stuff".  

While it did not take long to load up all the stuff Bob was donating, I was surprised by the sheer volume of things he was giving the Collective. This was no ordinary man's parts bin contents. There was a box of saddles of various types, several peanut butter jars full of fasteners, each jar neatly labelled with a tag as to its contents. There were components and tools, and even a couple of books on bicycle repair. This smacked of a story beyond that of a cycling nerd who did his own service work. 

Bob himself filled in a lot of the blanks as we conversed over the course of 45 minutes or so. He was ready to talk, and I had the time, so I politely listened to his tales. Bob was the son of a local business owner, and he worked at the business for much of his life, only a few blocks away from his home. He was quite proud of the fact that he had no cable service, no cell phone, and did not have internet service at his home. Bob is a modern day enigma. A throwback to analog times. 

His story went on. Bob told me about how he fixed bicycles after his shift at his father's business for the neighborhood children. They sometimes would be waiting for him. Sometimes in a line five or six deep. Over the years, Bob had built up relationships with many youngsters that would grow up and call to him whenever they passed through and saw him in later years. Bob had trouble remembering some of them. But one fellow he did have a special memory of.

I won't give his name, because of the circumstances this man finds himself in now, but when this man was a youngster in Bob's neighborhood, he would show up and he apparently had an innate skill with tools. Bob explained to me, as he spoke in an excited tone, that this kid didn't need any directions, he somehow just figured out how to do mechanical things. Bob said he would show up everyday for weeks on end wanting to help Bob fix bicycles. 

Bob was getting a bit annoyed by the eager young chap. Bob was bothered by the constant questions, the ever present appearance of this kid at his doorstep, and he grew tired of him. Bob said he had geared himself up to ask the youth to not come by as often, but just when he was about to tell the youngster to back-off, this kid spoke something that took Bob by surprise. He told Bob that, "This is the only place I feel safe". Well, Bob's attitude toward the young man changed in an instant. 

Bob did a little asking around, He found out that the youngster's mother was the only parent, and that her children had to fend for themselves often due to the mother's prostitution and drug use. Bob was concerned, but before he could come up with a plan to possibly mentor the kid, the mother took the children and moved away. Later on, Bob explained in a somber tone of voice, the young man grew up, got into trouble, and spent time in a Federal prison. Bob expressed some regret at that outcome, thinking he missed a chance there. 

Anyway, after a bit of contemplative silence, Bob carried on. He had been hit hard by the changes made at a local relief organization where he had volunteered since quitting his regular job. There he had serviced the donated bicycles the organization would get. However; new management came in and changed the structure of the organization to where they did not accept donations any longer, meaning that they had no further use for Bob and his mechanical  talents. 

This happened right before the pandemic. Bob had already slipped into a depression due to his circumstances, and the pandemic lengthened that period for him until recently. Bob explained to me that he just kind of snapped out of it, for whatever reason, he could not say. Then it was that he knew that his bicycle repair days were over. That resulted in the note, and that resulted in my visit. 

There was just one thing I had to know before I left. I know most every bicycle mechanic that has wrenched in the area for the past 30-40 years, but I'd never heard a peep about this man who had been keeping the bicycles of many kids rolling for 35+ years on Waterloo's North side. Where Bob came from I now knew, but I did not know what sparked the interest. How did he get into fixing bikes for other people? 

Bob said that one day, almost 40 years ago now, he was maintaining his racing bike he bought from his brother, a Teledyne Titan titanium bike, and a kid rolled up to him and asked a question. "Do you know how to fix bikes?", the tyke asked. Bob said he replied, "Well, I know how to fix THIS bike. Why?" And the kid said, "Well, can you fix my bike?", and that's all it took. Apparently, this kid, as Bob said with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes, "had a big mouth", and apparently the word got out in the neighborhood. Bob said he used to charge for his services, but then he realized that most of the kids he helped had disadvantaged home lives and that he could do more good just by helping to keep kids rolling. So, he quit charging money to help out with bicycle repairs. 

I was a bit taken aback, and I couldn't believe that such a story of good character and benevolence was hidden right under our noses here. It just did not seem right to me that Bob's story should go unnoticed. so, I am doing what little I can and posting it here. We could all take a cue or two from Bob's life, and I hope you don't mind my sharing this here today. 

I know I'll remember him every time I handle one of those nicely labelled peanut butter jars at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective in the future.