Mass. woman finds bike she lost 42 years ago

The little girl thought she had lost her new bike forever when she tumbled off a rickety bridge over a muddy stream in Wellfleet, Mass., 42 years ago.

But the bike has been found — by the now-grown woman's own wife.

Lisa Brown tells the Cape Cod Times she was 11 when she lost control while riding over the Herring River in 1970 and fell in. She came up "smelling like a snapping turtle" but could not locate her bike in the muddy depths.

Brown's wife, Deirdre Olinger, was walking along the stream this spring when she spotted a rusted bike tangled in the undergrowth about a quarter mile from the bridge.

Brown, tipped off by the banana seat, knew immediately it was hers. She describes the discovery like "finding a long lost friend."