LEWISTON – In the photo, a young Ruth Slovenski poses with her bicycle, a birthday present from her parents in the early 1940s. She is rosy-cheeked and smiling, holding the bike up proudly and preparing to ride in a parade.

For nearly 70 years, it was the only bicycle she needed or wanted. Now 83, Slovenski looked forward to spring weather each year so she could ride her bike around Bates College.

“As soon as the ice was off the streets, I started riding again,” she said Thursday. “It was very light. It was so easy for me to ride. I don’t know if I could ride another one.”

She may have to learn.

Over the weekend, the bicycle was stolen when Slovenski stopped for coffee at the Campus Cuisine at Maison Marcotte, near Bates College. For the first time in at least 66 years, she doesn’t have the bicycle she had ridden since childhood.

“I always enjoyed riding through Bates College. It was always safe,” Slovenski said. “I never had to lock it up. I guess I should have.”

The bicycle has its original blue paint and the same basket that came with it. Bicycle dealers have made offers to buy the bike. Slovenski never wanted to part with it.

“How can you put down a value for something like that?” asked Lewiston police Cpl. Matt Cashman, who is investigating the theft. “It’s priceless. It’s her history.”

Police have footage from a surveillance camera showing a man or boy wearing a hat and dark clothing riding a bike that could be Slovenski’s along Campus Avenue in the direction of Sabattus Street.

Whoever made off with the bicycle made off with nearly seven decades of memories. They will have a hard time concealing the Huffy, which does not bear much resemblance to modern bikes. Slovenski’s has wide fenders and a large metal basket attached to the handle bars. The brakes are activated by the pedals and there are no gears. Slovenski does not think she could adapt to a new bike, with brake levers and gears to shift.

Calm and soft-spoken, she has considered offering a reward for the return of her bicycle. She does not speak in a vindictive tone, but as a person who misses a cherished item.

“I went to look at new bikes, but they’re just not the same,” she said. “I don’t want another bike. I want mine.”

Just hours after the story of the stolen bike broke, complete strangers were empathizing. A man in Oregon called the Sun Journal Thursday night after reading about Slovenski’s plight online.

“It just broke my heart,” said 36-year-old Wendell Miller. “I know there’s not a whole lot I can do, but I’d like to do something. I’d like her to know that there’s still some humanity left in the world; that people still care.”

Miller said he would gladly buy Slovenski a new bike, as close to the original as her childhood ride. At the same time, he understands how hard it is for a person to let go of something kept for so long.

“Nothing,” Miller said, “can replace the sentimental value of something like that.”

The bicycle was Slovenski’s prized possession.

As a child in New York, she would adorn the Huffy with bunting and ride with passing parades. This was while World War II was raging. Bicycles were a means of socializing with other children from the neighborhood.

“The yard would be full of kids,” she said, smiling at the memory. “We would ride up and down the street together.”

She may still offer a reward for the return of her Huffy. She hopes the thief will simply return it or that someone might know where it is.

Good weather is coming, after all, and Slovenski wants to sit in the same seat she occupied a generation ago and ride just as she did as a little girl in a bygone era.

“I would love to have it back,” she said, “as soon as possible.”

Anyone with information about a stolen blue Huffy bicycle is urged to call Lt. Mark S. Cornelio at 513-3001, extension 3323, or Cpl. Matthew Cashman at 513-3001, extension 6359.

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