The Aboriginal Bike

When my wife first brought home a "new to her" bike, I was skeptical. It was an old Murray or Montgomery Wards bicycle, with a broken tank light, and dry rotted tires. The tires did hold air.

We worked together to clean up the greasy relic, and I replaced the half eaten seat that was on it. The handlebar grips were likewise swapped out. For a while, I looked at the broken headlight lense, and tried to arrive at a solution. Finally, I decided to ditch it, and the headlight fixture began to take on the appearance of an African mask.

I removed the fixture, popped out the lenses, and filled the headlight recesses with fiberglass. When dry, I cut the slits to mimic the appearance of the eyes on tribal masks in Africa. I drilled out the surrounding area, and my wife wove rattan to make the fringe surrounding the mask. My little daughter contributed the happy meal monkey,whose eyes light up a firey red when a button on top of his head is pushed.

Finally, the rest of the bike looked rather bare. I began to look at aboriginal "dream time" dot painting, and saw it as amotif that might compliment the bike. While my wife was involved in other activities, i broke out the white and red paint and went to work. Once finished, the bicycle blended into a cohesive whole. Now, all I need is a didgeridoo!