A recent post on one of my favorite websites reminded me of a story I recently recounted to a friend about the time my tricycle was stolen. It was the summer of '73, the 'rents and I had just landed in Portland, Oregon by way of Chicago, and within days a band of thieves had spirited away with my little red 3-wheeler. Mom and I combed the grounds of our sprawling, sleazy apartment complex, found what looked exactly like my trike because it WAS my trike, and knocked on the door of the perpetrators to reclaim it. Like most criminals, however, these folks had a bold disregard for the truth, and they breezily claimed the tricycle was theirs, congenially mocking us with what we all knew was a lie. The kicker was, we just accepted their story, knowing it was false, and walked away. No argument, nothing. I think we even thanked them for their time. And the reason I bring this up is, in many ways, I've been reliving this scenario over and over again in different contexts, with different people and things, ever since. The tragedy of this story isn't that something important to me was taken away, but that I handed it over without a fight. And I think that's about enough of that.