Dad Rudy was an engineer at a midwest company called Yard-Man and eventually became VP of that department during his career there. Consequently, we always had alot of lawnmowers hangin' around to test. Even in the early days he enjoyed knocking around & creating stuff in the garage with his boys. This was an early effort that was the talk of the neighborhood. Note the 1950's 'rocket theme' silver paint, hupcap steering wheel, motor and wheels from a lawn mower and that cool hand gear. The boys can tell you more about the mechanical stuff-- all I remember is that we posed for LOTS of pictures with it... (and by the way, Dad eventually did let me drive it!)
We grew up with lawn mowers, go carts and mini bikes. My dad took a stingray bicycle frame and mounted a motor on a board with a belt drive and foot operated idler clutch pulley. We started off with small motors, but quickly grew tired of the slow speeds of about 20 miles per hour. We graduated to a 4 HP that was quite a bit heavier and too big to fit under the seat. The larger motor had to hang off to the side. The farther it stuck out, the more out of balance the little bike was. We had to compensate by leaning the other way. Now the bike went about 40 MPH. I imagine the neighbors thought it kind of comical and stupid to see us coming down the road at about a 30deg angle, sometimes barefoot, certainly with shorts on. The tires we had were from a reel type mower that had slip on tires. These tires were made to go about 1 mile per hour. When we would crank it up to full speed, the rubber tires would grow to about 1.5 times the diameter and sometimes slip off the wheel, making our ride quite slippery.
One time I was going full speed down Pioneer Drive headed home in front of Danny King’s house when not only the tires fell off but I lost the entire front wheel. Needless to say, going full speed with only front forks to ride on did not make for a pleasant sudden stop. I dragged myself home and thought I better clean up before anyone saw me. I was rinsing off in the tub when mom came in. I was pretty bloody, but the tub filled with a few inches of water did not help make it look less deadly. My mother (Pearl) about lost it. It took several weeks for all the scabs to stop hurting, then it was back to rebuilding the mini bike again.
When living on 320 Grayfield Ct in ADA, MI, we put up a retaining wall at the corner of our house in the front yard. I was digging a post hole and remembered that the power to the home was coming into the wall from that corner. I was ready to take one more poke with the shovel but thought better of it. I was about ¼ inch away from the main power line coming from the street to the house. I remembered the fuse box event from age 13 and thought the light show I just avoided, although spectacular I am sure, may have been life threatening. This is one time I listened to the promptings of the Spirit and avoided another disaster.
My dad used to burn the grass and trash in the back yard. He used gasoline to help get things started. (These days we just use Boy Scout water to do the same thing) He would splash on some gas, strike a match at a distance and throw it hoping to catch a wet spot and poof, it would be in full flames.
Doug and I became pretty good pyrotechnics at the ripe old age of 13. We cut grass for about 5 neighbors in the summer and one of them, the Gilcrest family had a big pile of brush in the back. As I recall it was about 15’ x 40’ and about 6’ tall. We asked if they would like it burned and we were given permission. If they only knew! We used about a half gallon of gas to get it prepped, then we let it ferment a few minutes, and then we did the match thing. It took about 5 matches being thrown for us to hit a wet spot. Vavoom, the pile took off like a rocket. It lifted about 10’ off the ground and was in a fierce flaming mode when it hit the ground. The fruit trees close by were getting torched and we kept looking at the rear windows to see if they were looking out at us. Phew, they never said anything and we learned not to use so much gas next time.
We traded a motor with Bob Nims next door for a “Doll House” that we made into a fort. We dragged it up the hill and across the yard over the old fire pit. We made a trap door in the bottom and dug a basement. Every time it rained the dirt would get wet and wormy. We eventually dragged it to the other side of the back yard and built an addition onto it that doubled the size. Later we built on an upstairs that made our fort now four times bigger than the original doll house. We added electricity via about 200 feet of extension cords strung up on the telephone poles. I shimmied up the telephone pole by the fort and tapped into the phone line to provide us phone service too. We added air-conditioning too. It’s amazing we did not start a fire with all of the extension cords. Carpet and paneling came next. We were the pride of the high school for places to hang out.
