Originally Posted by
BookFinder
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Finally, I agree with livedarklions: as a kid I spent all day on my bike during the summers, but it was with my neighborhood gaggle of guy friends and not my parents.
And we lived in a different world in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The same in-town neighborhoods we worked our way through as older kids and early teens are now risky places to walk or cycle because of demographic changes, and the decline of morality and general decency. I wouldn't let my grandkids ride there for fear of an amber alert being issued and my family being the people trapped in the horror.
It may well be the answer to the challenge is not found in less expensive bikes, more effective marketing, or parents taking up cycling with their kids, but in a return to the traditional moral and community values that once made it safe for a kid to leave sight of the house and his parent's watchful eye.
Hmm, I was with you up until that part of your post. During the times you mention, there was plenty of immoral, indecent, corrupt, violent, horrific behavior (and that was apparently despite the fact that the “demographic changes” to which you refer hadn’t taken place yet).
There were predators living amongst your friends and neighbors then too, but we didn’t hear about them as much. Or call them out for what they are. Or have the investigative or forensic techniques to prove it yet.
But anyway, back to bikes...
