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Show Nebraska hills to our ranch. What did I need with a bicycle? Just get me in trouble. Next thing I'd be wanting to ride it ontheSab-bath. ontheSab-bath. And so I prayed for a bicycle. bi-cycle. I had faith, too. If I prayed hard enough, long enough and sincerely enough I'd get a bicycle. I prayed foi months, on my knees, every night. NO BICYCLE. Not even two discarded wheels to have the hired men help me fasten fast-en together. Nothing. Of course the good Lord knew that a bicycle wouldn't be good for me, and I realize real-ize that now.. But at the time all I couldthink remember, I was about 8 years old-was old-was that God had let me down. And so I lost faith inpray-er. inpray-er. Oh, I got it back, but never so fervently as when I wanted that bicycle. I say a short prayer each morning and another short one at night, thanking the Lord for letting me make it back to bed one more day. (Maybe this story should have been saved for my shrink. Might make more sense from the couch? But it explains why I always think of prayer every time I see a bicycle and we see a hundred a day.) I'VE LEARNED not to ask for something impossible. I've learned to thank Him for gifts and favors deserved de-served or not. I no longer picture the Deity as a furiously fur-iously angry giant with flashing flash-ing eyes and a long white beard. But once in a while I imagaine He turns to St. Peter and says: "Take a note for Mac's guardian angel. Have him remind re-mind Mac that he's asking, again, the impossible. I may note the sparrow's fall, but after all, I can't grant every little whim." But still ... no bicycle? Mac. Everywhere you look, every place you go, bicycles. Big bikes, little bikes, motor bikes. If you're a kid without a bike, you're a poet without a rhyme, a song without a tune. I'm probably the only man in town who never, NEVER owned a bicycle. And in a way it might have changed my life. Wait till I tell you MY DAD belonged to the olc United Presbyterian school of hard-nosed religious relig-ious people, almost fanatic, nearly bigoted. He mellowed mellow-ed in later years, learned that there were two sides to everything. But when I was 8 or 10 I had religion coming com-ing out of my ears. Nothing was possible without with-out God's approval. Nothing could be accomplished without with-out lengthy prayer. The Bible was to be followed to the letter. We couldn't even raise our voices on the Sabbath. Sab-bath. Tough on the older kids-dancing kids-dancing was forbidden, cards were not allowed in the house, an ice cream soda on the Sabbath was blasphemy. And so . . . I WANTED a bicycle the worst way. Why? Had my pick of three good horses. No place to ride except on the two narrow ruts which comprised com-prised the road through the |