I was blessed to inherit my grandmother’s wedding ring set. The antique platinum set was not only much more than I could have afforded to buy at the time, it was the perfect style for Colleen as well. One problem, though. The rings were in Oklahoma and I was in Israel, and I needed to get them in order to take them to Czech Republic where Colleen was living at that time.

I planned to ask her to marry me on my upcoming visit to Czech Republic and had to figure out a way to get the rings. I could have had them mailed to me in Jerusalem, but the taxes would have been crazy expensive. In God’s providence, Meno, my Israeli ministry partner had been scheduled to speak at a church within 5 minutes of my parent’s house outside of Oklahoma City. Now, I had a plan.

I asked Meno to bring the rings back to Israel, and he was happy to do so. He arrived early in the afternoon on Friday, and called to say that he had arrived safely and that he would bring them to church on the next day.

Bill and I were visiting Florence Wellborne, an elderly lady from west Texas who lived fairly close to Meno’s house, so I told Meno we would hop on over and get the rings. Meno insisted that I didn’t need to come all the way over to his house because he would bring them to me the next day. Again, we were only 10 minutes away, so I said, “we’ll come on over and get them.” Back and forth we haggled until he finally relented: “Okay, but you need to come quickly because we are going out to eat.”

Bill and I hustled over to Meno’s and retrieved the rings. I was really happy with the job a jeweler friend had done refurbishing them. But I was more happy to have them in hand … that made my upcoming engagement seem more real.

Later that evening, I received a call from Meno. He got straight to the point: “Craig, it’s a good thing you came and got your rings because our house was robbed while we were gone.” I snickered and said, “Come on, Meno, I don’t believe that.” He insisted they had, in fact, been burgled. I continued to refute his attempt to fool me. But after a minute of back and forth, he finally said, “Craig, I’m not kidding. We went out to eat, and when we came back, as Anat opened the door, someone inside pushed it shut. By the time we could get the door open, he had gone out the back, jumped off the balcony, and all we could see was a man running down the hill.” “Come on, Meno,” I pushed back, but not as strongly as before because this was starting to sound more plausible. “I’m not kidding, I had $700 from my trip on the dresser. He took that and all of Anat’s jewelry. I’m so glad you came to get your ring, or it would be gone, too,” he said.

I was immediately sick at my stomach, and the excitement of having my rings in hand, was soured by the fact that Anat’s jewelry had been taken, and that my rings could have been gone, too. I appreciate that neither Meno nor Anat made me feel guilty for still having my rings. In fact, they seemed both relieved that it was only their stuff that was stolen and not mine AND genuinely happy for me.

On my seventh or eighth birthday, my Grandad took me out to his car to get my birthday present. I never could have imagined that when he opened the trunk of his car I would see a motorcycle. But that’s exactly what happened!

There, somehow wedged in the trunk, was a gently used desert orange Yamaha Mini-Enduro motorcycle that looked like the one in the photo on the right.

With a little effort, my grandad was able to wrestle the bike out of the trunk and on to the ground. I don’t remember anything that happened between the moment the tires hit the ground and the moment I mounted the bike in the field behind our mobile home. But, I have a very vivid memory of my mom and grandmother watching me through the back window. Their looks of disapproval quickly morphed into a grimace as I approached the fence with no idea how to stop. As they looked away, I crashed into the fence. Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt. Neither was the motorcycle. Had I been hurt, I suspect, that would have been the end of that adventure.

Things got better pretty quickly as I learned how to throttle down and use the breaks, which was good because my mom was not happy about the surprise birthday gift.

It wasn’t long until I was racing around the field with a couple older kids, Jeff Baden and David Owen. They were riding Honda Trail 70s, but I was able to keep up in spite of their age and 10cc advantage. The field, about 5 acres, had a trail worn around the perimeter and a small pitcher’s mound type bump on the south end over which we jumped on each go-round. Round and round we went, never tiring of the blaring buzz of the 2-stroke engines, nor the repetition of our course.

I only had one mishap, and that ended up not being anything serious. On my way home, I entered the road while looking over my shoulder and didn’t realize I had crossed the road and was nearing the opposite side curb. When I looked forward, it was too late; I hit the curb and fell over. There was no damage, but the engine was flooded and I couldn’t get it started. Not wanting my parents to know that I had wrecked, I began to push the bike home, hoping I could get it started in a few minutes. I’m not sure how long I had been pushing the bike, but it was long enough that my parents noticed the quiet from the field and got in the car to come look for me. We met on the road, but I only told them that I couldn’t get it started. I never told them why. They never asked for more information, so I didn’t offer any.

The motorcycle fun lasted only a couple years because the owner of the field didn’t want us riding on the property. He had plans to develop it; at least that is what the signs said. However, nothing was done with the property for 30 years. In 2004, Arcadia Park Elementary School was relocated to a new facility on this property.

Had I not had to sell the bike for lack of a place to ride, I think I would have started racing motocross or possibly doing hill climb events because my dad really enjoyed both. Actually, we all seemed to enjoy watching them. But, I guess such wasn’t meant to be. And, I didn’t have another motorcycle until I was in high school.