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27: “Keep Your Eye Upon the Donut”
Ali and her mother had grown very close since they had been on their own in New York City. When Caroline got home in the evening, it wasn’t unusual for her to say “Grab your coat, Honey. Let’s go to dinner and a movie tonight.” Usually they would go to the old standby, The Pizza Giant, order their usual favorites dishes, and play a couple of songs on the jukebox. Ali’s mother gave her several dimes. “OK, find something by Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin for me, and pick one you want.” Ali would pick an Elvis Presly song; she especially liked the Hound Dog song, even though the words seemed odd.
“What does that mean when he says “you ain’t never caught a rabbit so you ain’t no friend of mine?” Ali asked her mother.
“I have no idea,” her mother responded rolling her eyes and shaking her head from side to side. While waiting for their dinner, Ali would have her mother quiz her on capitals of the world or capitals of the states.
“Utah?” her mother asked.
“Salt Lake City, Ali quickly responded.
“Canada?”
“Ottawa.” Ali was proud of her ability to remember the capitals. Ali urged her mother to keep quizzing her throughout dinner.
“OK, enough Ali. Time to eat some of your spaghetti before it gets cold!”
After dinner, they would usually walk down to Times Square to see a movie. Occasionally, they went to the Mayflower donut shop for a late night snack. Ali had memorized the sign on the wall that said:
“As you ramble on through life brother, wherever you may go, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole”.
“What do you think that means?” Ali inquired of her mother.
“It means that you should be happy with what is there and not what isn’t there,” responded her mother. “The donut is there, and the hole isn’t.”
Later they would start walking home and Ali would start begging her mother to catch a taxi.
“I’m so tired,” said Ali.
“Just a good stretch of the legs, Honey,” her mother replied.
Reynolds rarely came home even on the holidays. He preferred to visit with friends his own age from St. Andrews. The parents of the boys at St. Andrews were wealthy and lived in nice places like Long Island and
Connecticut. When he did come home, he didn’t seem to enjoy doing anything with either his mother or his sister.
“What’s the matter with him, anyway?” Ali said indignantly one night.
“He’s just growing up, Sweetie. Leave him alone,” was all her mother would say. Caroline was pleased that Reynolds was doing well in school, even if he was becoming an increasingly distant teen-ager.
For her birthday, Ali received the most wonderful gift from her mother’s friend, Ernie. A brand new, red, shiny bicycle! She hadn’t ridden a bicycle since she lived in the Valley. But this bicycle was so much nicer than the hand-me-down bicycle she inherited from her brother when she was six. This one even had a little black leather satchel behind the seat where you could put special things like your apartment key, change, or a pack of Chuckles. Ernie owned a sporting goods and knew Ali was hoping for a bicycle.
“You do so well in school Ali, and you were so brave after the whole dog-bite incident awhile back. I wanted you to have something special,” said Ernie. Ali was overjoyed. She did not ride it in the city streets, since that was too dangerous. But on weekends, she and her mother would go to the park where there was a bicycle path and she would ride while her mother watched her.
After each time she took the bicycle out, she would walk it back home through the streets between the park and the Osgood, then through the lobby, up the elevator, and back into their apartment where she would shine it up with glass cleaner. The bike was parked in her bedroom and every night she looked at it as she fell asleep, feeling very fortunate for such a gift.
Toward the end of summer, Ali went to the park alone. She hadn’t actually gotten permission to take the bike to the park by herself, but it was so hot and so boring back at the apartment, that she just decided to go. She planned be home before her mother got home from work. Because the day was so uncomfortably hot, Ali bought an ice cream from a vendor near the entrance of the park and put the ice cream bar in her little satchel behind the seat along with the change, which was about 35 cents.
She decided to get on the bicycle path and pedal around awhile until she found a nice shady place to sit and eat her ice cream. Off she went, sailing down the pathway on her bicycle. The sun shone through the tree leaves, and the squirrels and pigeons darted out of the way of her bicycle. She saw two boys up ahead on the bicycle path, sitting on the railing which separated the path from the roadway where the cars, taxi’s, and horse carriages traveled. She had a momentary thought that something wasn’t quite right. She was thinking of turning around and going in the opposite direction, but decided that she was being foolish. So she kept going toward the boys.
As Ali approached the two boys, they leaped off the railing and grabbed her bicycle handles! She suddenly found herself on the ground and watched in amazement as one boy rode away with her bike and the other ran off through the bushes. She looked around and saw absolutely no one around. Right there, in the middle of the park, in the middle of the day, there were no cars, no mothers walking with their children, and no old folks feeding the pigeons. In a moment, she was up and running after the boy who had stolen her bike.
“My bicycle, my bicycle, come back, my ice cream is melting------” she yelled. The boy on the bicycle looked back at her and actually looked a little afraid that she was gaining on him; Ali could see his face. He pedaled much faster and was soon out of sight. Ali was shaken, but not really hurt. She did something dumb, and she lost her bike in the process. She rubbed her elbow, and stomped in anger on the pavement.
“It’s not fair,” Ali yelled to absolutely no one in particular.
Later that evening, her mother told her how lessons are sometimes learned the hard way.
“But, my bicycle, mother----do you think I’ll ever get it back.”
“Probably not,” was all her mother said.
“It’s not fair,” Ali said again, this time to her mother.
“Keep your eye upon the donut, Ali. Be grateful for what you do have.”
That night, as Ali lay in bed, she looked over to the spot she had parked her bicycle each night. All she saw was a big, empty hole.