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EDEN — For a long time, Mae Beth Boyd has wanted a bicycle — one with a horn and maybe a basket. And it would be nice if it was purple. Mae Beth likes purple. 

All she really wanted was to strap on a helmet, hop on the bike and ride like the other kids.

But Mae Beth is not like the other kids. She’s mentally disabled, and even at 18, she doesn’t have the coordination and balance needed to ride a two-wheel bicycle.

It’s one of many things Mae Beth hasn’t been able to do, says her mother, Darlene Smith.

So, Smith put the word out at The Sirloin House, the restaurant in Eden where she waits tables, that she was on the lookout for a used, adult-sized tricycle.

One of her regular customers, Jerry Mimms of Eden, took on the challenge of finding one. He has a knack for turning up treasures at yard sales, flea markets and auctions.

He kept an eye out, and a few months ago, he found a broken-down, rusty adult tricycle that was the perfect size for Mae Beth.

When Mimms expressed an interest in buying it and explained why, the owner gave it to him.

Mimms scavenged for parts to repair it. He sanded the rust off and painted it — silver and green with purple handlebars. And he delivered it to Mae Beth’s home in Eden.

“She glowed like a Christmas tree,” says her mother.

Mae Beth rode her tricycle on the side street beside her house and around her backyard.

She and her mom went shopping and bought that basket and horn Mae Beth wanted. But Smith, who is a single parent, says she hadn’t gotten around to putting them on yet.

Smith also bought a lock for the bike.

Every evening, when Mae Beth, who attends Morehead High School, got off the bike, her mother would pull that cable through the frame of the tricycle and latch it to the carport in their backyard.

It was a routine, and that’s what she did one Wednesday evening in mid-August. But the next morning, when Smith walked outside, the tricycle was gone.

The cable had been cut, probably with bolt cutters.  Smith can only conclude  someone came prepared to steal Mae Beth’s tricycle.

She has tried to explain it to Mae Beth, who can’t understand why someone would take something that belonged to her, especially something that meant so much to her.

More than a month later, she still gets emotional when she talks about the “bad men who took her bike.”

Smith phoned the police and filed a report. She also made the rounds of the pawn shops and second-hand stores in the area and even checked  Craigslist to see if one showed up for sale that matched Mae Beth’s.

And Smith is on the lookout, once again, for a used, adult tricycle.

This time, she’d really love to find one that folds so that she can store it inside her house for safekeeping.

But folding tricycles are more expensive, and it seems that any kind of adult tricycle is a rarity in second-hand markets.

So, if anyone has a used adult tricycle they aren’t riding, Smith would love to talk with you.

But better yet, be on the lookout for a silver and green tricycle with purple handlebars. It shouldn’t be difficult to spot. And if you do see it, give the Eden police a ring.

Mae Beth has a horn and a basket waiting for it.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781, Ext. 116, or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com