From the time he could turn the pedals of his first bicycle until his death nearly 75 years later, my father, Robert Hancock, traveled thousands of miles across the the highways and hills of the Pacific Northwest on the seat of his bicycle.
In the early years of World War II, Daddy delivered telegrams for Postal Telegraph (a competitor to Western Union) in Portland, Oregon, riding the bike shown in this picture. Portland is now known as very "green" city, but Daddy went green long before it was fashionable or easy, riding to work nearly every day of his life. When he retired, he routinely rode at least 25 miles a day, and was a frequent participant in the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland Classic (STP), riding his last STP at the age of seventy-four. But although cycling kept him healthy and active, just a few short years after that last STP, Parkinson's Disease forced him onto a stationary bicycle, which he rode until just a month before he died, in September 2006 at the age of eighty.
I am currently writing a historical novel for young adults based on Dad's time with Postal Telegraph, under the working title "Bicycle Boy."
Go for it! It sounds like a marvelous story! If you ever want to just share parts and pieces, please feel free! I've spent much of my life as an editor, so I may be able to provide a second point of view. Hope you'll at least let me know when it's done!
These are the stories that tell us all who we are and where we came from. I'm telling stories, but in a very different way! It's all about pictures of our past!
Good luck! Wayne
That's amazing! I can't imagine being that active.