An OTBKB reader sent this story in. During the summer, she moved to Park Slope with her family from Washington state. She found OTBKB not long ago and reads it daily.

My husband bought me a green 1970’s schwinn collegiate bike for our
anniversary this summer. Right away I found a front mounted baby
seat for our almost two year old. Moving to Park Slope from
Washington State, I was a little overwhelmed to say the least. But
almost every morning Scout (our son) and I would throw on our tennis
shoes and explore the city. We rode to Tedd and Honey’s in Cobble
Hill, we rode to Red Hook, we made a trip over the Brooklyn Bridge to
the promenade to get our first peak at Lady Liberty, we would make
quick trips to the Prospect Park Zoo, it was our grocery getter, it
was a symbol of our embarkment on New York from Washington.

Then, one morning a biker died in a tragic accident when he collided with a
bus. It was on the corner of the block we live on and my husband and
son were witnesses. I didn’t ride with Scout on our bike for a week.
I couldn’t get the image of the lonely bike laying in the rode out of
my mind. I felt lucky that we still had our lives but so strange and
sad that one was lost so close in proximity to our day to day lives.

Finally I convinced myself to take a ride.

We live right on PPW so we were only going to ride though the park and back. My mind was still
on the man and his family.

When we made it back safely to our house I parked my bike on the light pole in front where I normally lock it. I collected my purse and Scout and walked inside. Forgetting to chain up my bike. The next morning we all rose early and were headed out for a ride to Get Fresh for some breakfast and digging in the garden. I rubbed my eyes as I looked at the pole where my bike was usually parked.

Our bike was gone. The bike lock laying nicely locked around
the light pole and the baby seat too. Much to my surprise Scout was
more upset then I was. That someone would take our bike, that it
wasn’t there to take an adventure at our will. “Bike gone” he said.
“someone take bike way” he added with his new skill of forming
sentences. It was almost two weeks ago and he still stops at the
light pole as we’re headed out.

I feel like maybe someone took it thinking it was free. Being that it
wasn’t locked and because they took the time to remove the baby seat.
It also has collapsable baskets on either side of the back tire that
you can’t see in the photo.