Breathing life into old bikes

Photo by Michael Woodward, Reporter

KEEP ON TURNING — After repairing and donating 40 bicycles to children for Christmas, Paul Davis is already preparing for next year.

Photo by Michael Woodward, Reporter

THIS OLD TREE HOUSE — Paul Davis built this tree house for his grandchildren out of discarded pallets and siding from a neighbor’s newly built house. He added a solar panel to charge a 12-volt battery that powers the TV and CD player inside.

Paul Davis, 73, has played Santa at BloodSource for eight years running. But this year he did far more than wear the costume and give blood. Beginning in August, Davis turned his garage into Santa’s workshop by repairing 40 bicycles to give to children on Christmas.

He calls the operation “Recycled Cycles: Different Spokes for Different Folks.” Although Davis had to pay $5 for

some of the bicycles, about half were donated. Some of the bikes were “trashed,” he said, and could only be used for parts. The only major expense besides buying some of the bikes was buying new inner tubes.

“My wife and I are avid yard sale goers. By September, all my sheds were full of bikes,” Davis said. “And since I’m with the Legion, I decided I’d start the American Legion bike program.”

Davis collected old bikes and tricycles for little kids. He even renovated two 1966 ten-speed Hawthorns with chrome fenders.

Although many people didn’t want to donate their old bicycles at first, Davis said people were more generous with the bikes after they didn’t sell at their yard sale.

The bicycles were donated to children through four American Legion posts, BloodSource, the Neighborhood Church in Cottonwood and West Cottonwood Elementary.

“Some bikes were donated to the Rescue Mission to people who can’t drive to work. Nothing I have is for sale,” Davis said. “I’m looking for people that need help. That’s what all of this is about.”

Born in Indianapolis, Ind., in 1933, Davis moved south to his grandparents’ self-sufficient farm in Greensburg, Ind., when he was nine.

“It was tough for a city boy,” Davis said. “We raised our own beef, pork and vegetables.” Going to high school in nearby Burney, Ind., Davis didn’t play on the basketball team.

“I was the first boy cheerleader,” Davis laughed. “Talk about a lot of heckling.”

When he was 17, Davis left high school for the Navy, which stationed him in San Diego. He served two tours of duty in Korea on the carriers USS Bon Homme Richard and the Princeton CV-37.

Davis worked with the aviation ordinance crew that loaded bombs and ammunition onto airplanes for missions.

During some down time in the Navy, Davis and the ordinance crew found some bikes in the dump.

“We brought them back to the metal shop, fixed them up and gave away 15 finished bikes to kids in the area,” Davis said.

After the Navy, Davis sold office supplies to dealers for 19 years in Los Angeles. During this time he helped begin the first Corvair club in southern California in 1960.

The club put on seatbelt clinics and sold the seatbelts for $5 a set. Davis charged an installation of two items of canned goods.

“We saved our canned goods until Christmas and took food and donated toys to those on the Pasadena school’s needy families list,” Davis said.

Davis bought his five acres in Cottonwood and drove there in a U-Haul with two dogs and four cats. The dogs are now gone, but the cats keep coming. He takes in feral cats that people have dropped off. He now has six cats that he takes care of. Scruffy, a friendly black cat with a chewed ear, received a $700 kidney operation recently.

If the name of Davis’ bike program was any indication, he is a rhymer and a confessed smart aleck. Davis has written a thick stack of unpublished poems and limericks that range from serious and touching to others that would crack-up Dr. Seuss.

“I’ve always been silly,” Davis said.

And some of the titles prove it: “Henry the Christmas Elephant,” “Love Song to a Ladder” and “Ode to Folgers.” His story “Norton Goes to the Fair” is a six-page rhyme about a pig with a snorting problem.

He began writing after his wife, Judy, passed away in 1984. He wrote out of grief.

“It was therapy,” he said.

Although writing may have helped him, not all of his stories were for his own benefit. He wrote one poem for a client’s daughter who was dying of cancer.

He and his wife, Marilyn Davis, share a family of seven children and seven grandchildren.

Paul Davis plans to continue his bike program for next Christmas. To donate a bike to Recycled Cycles or to request one, call 347-0951.