Bicycle theft steals grandmother's hopes

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 17, 2001

PINELLAS PARK -- Last April Bonnie Forest received a gift from her grandchildren, a three-wheel bicycle that enlarged her world.

She pedaled to friends' homes and neighborhood stores. She used the bicycle to deliver sewing that supplemented her limited retirement income.

Recently, as she celebrated her 77th birthday with those same grandchildren, someone stole that gift and has left her virtually a prisoner in her mobile home in central Pinellas Park.

"I don't walk very well anymore. I don't know what I'm going to do now," she said Monday. "God knows how anyone could do this."

Now she has no way to deliver her completed sewing work and finds it difficult to even walk to the mobile home park office to pay her rent.

She reported the theft to police but has heard nothing and still has no bicycle.

"I had chained it outside, but that didn't stop them. I was dumbfounded when it wasn't there," she said. "I loved that little bike."

Before getting the bicycle, she says, she could walk to the neighborhood drugstore only once or twice a month. With the bicycle, she made that trip whenever she felt like it.

"The security guard at Walgreens even let me chain it up to the "Don't Park Here' sign because it didn't fit in the regular bike rack," she said.

She and her family are hoping to replace the bicycle but are afraid they won't be able to afford it. The stolen bike was purchased for $60 from another park resident. A new bike could cost several hundred dollars.

"I'd like another bike," she said. "But I don't have my heart set on it."

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