Old Fools Journal: Early Adventures in Motoring or the foolishness of youth

Back in the olden times when I almost knew everything. Two years after this picture was taken (I was 14) I knew everything and I should have made my fortune but I didn't and as time went by I didn't know everything anymore.

This is a late 1940's Cushman three wheel motor scooter. It had a 4.5 or 5 horsepower flat head gasoline engine and a two speed transmission. There were springs on all three wheels and no shocks. It was clocked at 55 mph on a slight downhill and it was unsafe at any speed. I really had fun with it.

When my dad brought it home it was supposed to be for him to ride to work which he did for a while. It came with a section of an airplane cockpit. The plan was to add it to the scooter frame but it was never done. The cockpit was probably from a trainer and was very light and it had a sliding canopy. How cool would that have been. But like most plans the big picture was easy, the failure was in the details.

It didn't matter, the scooter was wonderful. In my mind I can still see the details and smell the smells. I turned it up on its side a few time and was ejected more than than a few times. When it started to turn over the centrifugal force was so great that there was no way a rider could stay on. The rider just kept going in a straight line and the scooter turned and went on it's way. It caused more than a little excitement. One of it's "safety features" was it would throw the chain. When that happened so it didn't go far.

One of the other "safety features" was the brake. I say brake because it only had one drum brake on the back wheel and it was ineffective. It's just as well because if it had good brakes it would have thrown the rider over the front then run him down.

The picture was taken in 1953 at our place on Rodney Parham Road west of Little Rock, Arkansas. Today this would be in the middle of a Kmart parking lot. Then it was paradise, I just didn't know it.