My “new” bicycle and I were born in the same year. The bike, a 1943 J. C. Higgins, recently rode with me from northern Minnesota on a rack on the back of my RV.

It was covered in dirt and grease accumulated over what appeared to be a large part of its life, so it wasn’t invited inside with my Trek Madone. It was, however, covered in a zipper bag because people who know bicycles know that this isn’t just any old bike.

The trip back to Seattle took us across the lake- strewn flat lands of Minnesota, over the rolling hills and farm lands of North Dakota and eastern Montana, then on to the mountains of western Montana and Idaho.

At last we reached the crop and scrub land of eastern Washington and finally to the Cascades and to the bike’s new home in Seattle.

This is the longest journey that this bike would take in its 65 years of life. From northern Minnesota’s lake country on the fringe of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to the bright lights of the big city, a journey that thousands of Minnesota natives took during World War II to work at Boeing, must have been quite a shock.

I was struck by many things on this latest trip, but mostly I was struck by the many derelict farms that I saw along the way. Most of these were near I-90 and I-94, an area where many gullible would-be farmers were enticed to come and realize their dreams via a miracle called dry-land farming.

In the early 20th century the Milwaukee Road railroad offered willing dreamers deals on land near their rails so the company could be assured of customers. The cheap land and promises of dry-land farming drew people to otherwise unfarmable land. (You might want to read "Bad Land, An American Romance," by Seattle resident, Jonathan Raban.)

The land was indeed unfarmable without water, and many or most of the farms built during this period were abandoned, leaving the derelict buildings to weather in the harsh environment and entice travelers like me to wonder about the long-gone occupants of the houses.

Another point not lost to me was a periodic glimpse at an old highway that paralleled the freeway. This was the highway that the freeway replaced in the 1960s and 1970s.

The old highway didn’t fight off the hills like the freeway does. This old highway hugged the slopes of hills whereas the freeway bullies its way through them. Which is better?

I recall a long ago trip made with my parents from Minnesota to Seattle. We traveled along this old highway, staying at some of the motels that can now be seen covered with bramble and faded green paint. They seemed pretty luxurious to me then.

The two- lane highway that we took back then went through, not around, towns and around hills, not through. The towns offered gas stations where a pump attendant washed the windows, checked the oil and asked if we needed water for the radiator.

My “new” bike would have felt right at home in that era, although I have to admit that air conditioning in cars today and the relative safety of freeways are appealing, to say nothing of power steering, automatic transmissions and interval windshield wipers.

All of this brings me back to my “new” bike. I’m its third owner. Its second owner knew the first owner who owned it since he was a kid. Both rode it on a regular basis; neither seemed to be overly concerned with cleaning it.

Grease and dirt, while not very attractive, can have a preservative affect. The wheels may have been rust pitted if not for the grease that covered them. There are a few scratches on the paint, but not many, although the paint does show its age.

While not originals, the tires were rotted and will be replaced by new whitewalls. When the bike was purchased at a Sears and Roebuck store it had two working lights with switch on the tank. The lights no longer work.

You can see what a little elbow grease and caring has done for the bike. It has only one speed and no power steering. It doesn’t go up hills very well, but it does the flats just fine.

While the abandoned houses that I saw along the way in Montana won’t come back from neglect, my “new” bike has come back and will proudly travel the streets of Seattle.

As you consider wiping the grease from your old one speed, ride safely.