Just being neighborly on the Tanglefoot Trail

Saturday afternoon, October 30, a man from Houston (the one in Chickasaw County, Mississippi) was riding his bicycle on the Tanglefoot Trail in Union County.

His bike had a flat tire.

Along came David Taylor, the public safety guy who regularly patrols the Tanglefoot Trail, driving a golf cart. Taylor called the Union County Sheriff’s office. Taylor, the Union County deputies and the cyclist concluded that the tire could not be repaired.

The bicycle rider from Houston had no one he could contact to come pick him and his bike up and get him home.

Taylor and the county deputies figured out a simple solution.

Taylor rode his golf cart to his home near the Union/Pontotoc County line. Then he drove his personal pickup truck back to where the man with the flat bicycle tire was waiting.

They put the bicycle in the pickup bed, the stranded cyclist in the passenger seat, and David Taylor drove the man to his home in Houston.

Not a big deal. Maybe not even a proper news story. But another example of a simple truth: public safety people in Union County and everywhere in America, while often maligned during the last couple of years, are mainly in the business of helping people when they need help.

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