Somebody Keeps Stealing Bicycles In The Seacoast Area In NH

Let me open with this...

WHO STEALS A KID'S BIKE?! WHO?! WHY?!

Okay, now that I have that out of my system, let me fill you in. Since I lived in Dover for a decent chunk of time up until moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Summer of 2018, a lot of posts from The (un)Official City of Dover, NH Facebook page on my feed. And you know what I've seen A LOT of within the last month?

Posts about bike thefts. KIDS' BIKE THEFTS.

This actually seems like it started maybe 6 weeks ago in the middle of October, when the Portsmouth community rallied around a Veteran who said his bike was stolen from his mother's home in the Gosling Meadows Neighborhood. That's where it all started.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and THIS post popped up in The (un)Official City of Dover, NH page about a red Schwinn bike being taken from East Concord St in Dover. No real update about it was given, just that it was stolen. It seemed to be just a one-off thing, and then...

The DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING when we had a real nice warm day out, THIS post popped up on The (un)Official City of Dover, NH page talking about a 10-year-old boy's silver Diamondback bike being swiped. The bike was never found, but thankfully a friend of the boy's mother decided to buy the boy a bike to replace the stolen one (again, like I've been saying especially lately -- no one looks out for and takes care of New Englanders in need like, well, fellow New Englanders).

Finally, yesterday, I got another notification while scrolling through my Facebook feed about THIS post in The (un)Official Dover, NH page, detailing a young girl's powder blue Nel Lusso bike being taken from Hampshire St.

So listen. 'Tis the Season of Giving, right? Unless you're Santa Claus and your plan is to soup up the bikes that were stolen -- how about whoever stole them, just goes back and puts them back where you found them. 2020 is tough enough for a lot of people. It's tough enough for kids that can't get a normal education because it's half in school and half at home (with occasional sprinkles of fully at home mixed in). They can't interact with their friends all day every day like they could last year when they were in school. Actually, maybe the ONLY real interaction they've been able to have is riding their bikes around town with their friends.

Like Kevin McAllister said in Home Alone 2: "You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with kids on Christmas."

Do the right thing and give the bikes back. And for the rest of, well, not just Dover but the entire world, secure your bikes!