OAK HARBOR, Ohio — It's hard to miss. And hard to ignore it or wonder why a shady front lawn in Oak Harbor along Route 105 has a parade of tricycles stretched in a circle across the grass.
Forty Tricycles to be exact and a few old wagons placed here and there. A bit curious. Too curious for this reporter who had to pull in the driveway of the ranch home to find out what this unusual, albeit artful arrangement of children's tricycles was all about.
Karen Daniels who lives there with her husband, David Skivers, was eager to tell me they had begun collecting this eclectic menagerie of trikes a few years back when somebody gave them a couple. And then, somebody else donated a few more, and as years went by, the trike collection grew as more people decided the couple would be good keepers of these once-cherished old memories on wheels.
Daniels said there was a reason they took a liking to this particular collecting hobby, and that's because Skivers was a champion bike rider in his day. He trained for Olympics years ago and still rides.
Bikes are his passion and in addition to the trikes, he has a few old vintage bikes displayed around the home and one of them hanging from the branches of a tree.
The tricycles come in all shapes, sizes, and vintage. A study on time. If you grew up anytime in the last 60 years, you'll probably find one that looked like yours. Some still have their brand labels on them, and show their original paint, while others long ago had their steel wheels and seats turn to rust, with a cobweb draped over them.
Daniels said they could fix up and up and sell them, but that's not why they collect them and display them. They just enjoy them.
And so do the people who drive by on their busy road and some drivers even stop by for a closer look, as we did.
And when you look a little closer, perhaps with the mind's eye, you don't just see a collection of old trikes, but you can envision the little feet that once pumped the little pedals, or wonder whose tiny fingers once grabbed those handlebars as their faces broke into a sunshine of grins when the big front wheel started to move them down the sidewalk.
They don't move much anymore though, only when the yard needs mowing that's when Daniels said her husband tells people that children who reside in the graves of a cemetery just down the road come over and move them at night when they come to ride them.
And in our imagination, how we wish that were true.
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