As I was mulching the hosta beds around the maple trees recently, I heard and then saw a boy on his motorized bicycle. He toured the neighborhood for a few minutes when I waved to him and pointed at his bicycle. The boy then stopped to show me his bike.
I found him to be a delightful young man with personality plus telling me his name was Aden Thackston, 15 years old and a sophomore at Fairfield High School in Leesburg.
Thackston said the motor for the bicycle cost him $100. Then he obtained a gas tank and had installed them himself.
To me, an old man with little mechanical ability, Thackston seemed to be a genius. In spite of the fact that there are 62 years between our ages, we chatted away like brothers.
Thackston did confide in me the bicycle would go as fast as 55 miles per hour on the open highway. Then I asked him, “Does your mother pray for you?”
“Oh yes!” he said. “She prays for me all the time.”
Speaking of Thackston’s mother, Jenni works in Leesburg. His father, Keith, works in Washington C.H. Thackston also has an older sister. The family lives in former attorney Carroll V. McKinney’s brick home. The home is located on Centerfield Road near where the old school was located or the Highland County North Joint Fire and Ambulance District is located today.
Thackston says his next project is a 1965 Mustang offered to him by an uncle. He will need to gather parts to put it together again and do a lot of rust repair.
It is my hope that Thackston dreams big because I feel along with his mother’s prayers and God’s help, he has the capability to be very successful in his lifetime.
Submitted by Leesburg residdent Richard Edwards.
