ROCKWELL — The family and friends of an elderly man are frustrated after a teen-ager stole a piece of his freedom.
On Friday, Arie Swinson, 82, left his mo-ped behind the Meadows of Rockwell Retirement Center, where he and his wife, Mae, live. Later that day, one of the other residents told Swinson his helmet was sitting on the ground outside. Thinking it had blown off the bike in the wind, Swinson went outside to retrieve the helmet, only to find his mo-ped had been stolen.
Swinson spent the weekend looking for the bike.
“He had everybody out looking for it,” granddaughter Cyndi Gordon said.
Sunday night, retirement home supervisor Cindy Harmon returned home to find her son playing with a friend. When the friend’s mother came to pick him up, she began talking about another boy’s new mo-ped. As she described the bike, Harmon said, “it just started to click with me.”
The mo-ped was Swinson’s.
Harmon called the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies retrieved the bike and arrested the boy who they believe stole it.
A 15-year-old Rockwell boy has been charged with larceny. He has not been identified because he is a juvenile.
Deputies returned the damaged bike to Swinson on Monday. The boy spray painted the bike black. The headlights and steering column are bent, the gas tank has a hole in it and the engine is damaged.
“He was just devastated,” Gordon said.
“How somebody could do something like that I don’t know,” Swinson said.
The part that makes Swinson’s family and friends so mad is the mo-ped provided Swinson with freedom. At 82 he no longer drives a car, so he relies on the mo-ped to get around. He goes to the grocery store, the drug store, church, to his daughter’s house to tend his garden and to visit his six children who live in the area.
“That’s the only transportation Mr. Swinson had and he’s a man that likes to go,” Harmon said.
“He’s very independent,” daughter Joyce Swinson said.
Family members took the mo-ped to Swinson’s daughter’s house in Rockwell, where they planned to fix it, but a mechanic has told them it is beyond repair. The bike, which is about 6 months old, is valued at $1,500, money Swinson and his family don’t have to spend on a mo-ped right now.
It took him about two years to save up for the bike. Joyce Swinson remembers her father working diligently to sell vegetables from the garden to raise the money.
The incident upset Swinson so that he had to be taken to the hospital Tuesday night. Both he and his family are frustrated, but the kindness of a stranger somewhat calmed that frustration Tuesday.
While at the grocery store, Swinson ran into a stranger and began a casual conversation. The subject of Swinson’s mo-ped came up and he told the stranger of the incident. At the end of the conversation the man handed Swinson $200.
“I’d never seen the man before,” Swinson said Wednesday, getting choked up.
Tuesday night, Harmon visited Swinson to see how he was doing.
Harmon has been at the retirement home for 13 years. She said the Swinsons have always been kind to her. “She (Mrs. Swinson) is like another mother to me.”
That night Harmon handed Swinson $100.
“I hope the community will pull together ... even if it’s just prayer,” Harmon said.
The family blames the teen-ager’s behavior partly on lack of discipline. Swinson said that in his day, children were punished when they misbehaved. “Now you can’t touch them.”
“We are showing teens you can go out and steal and it’s OK,” Harmon said.
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