The scooter motor

I think I was about fourteen when dad brought home an old scooter motor. He said it had been sitting around for some years and had no idea if it could be made to run again. It was a little heavy, about thirty pounds or so. It had a single cylinder, and dad showed me, as the flywheel turns it would engage an impulse magneto that would go "CLACK" every other revolution and thirty thousand volts would go to the single spark plug. Really cool old motor.

I carried the motor over to the picnic table and set it on some old cardboard and went about taking it apart to clean and service it. I pulled the spark plug out, took all the sheet metal off, put some oil down into the cylinder and turned the motor over a couple of times. Dad said that it was a good sign that the motor turned over freely.

Dad went off to do something else and left me to keep cleaning the motor up. I chased all the spiders off and started wire brushing the years of paint and rust. I was wire brushing the flywheel, turning it a little, wire brushing it some more, and turning it some more. You know how Levis have those brass buttons on the front fly? The spark plug wire was off the spark plug and hanging down loose. As I turned the flywheel and the impulse magneto went "CLACK" thirty thousand volts went from the spark plug wire, to the brass button on the front of my Levis. My life flashed before me. It was a short life, and so far had been filled with fun. I think I saw God that day.

Dad heard me yell, as did the rest of 8th street. He came running and found me standing there holding the wire brush and wondering, what just happened! And am I going to live. How do you tell your dad that you just electrocuted your privates. It took dad some time to stop laughing. He was almost crying he was laughing so hard. He explained something about low amps and high volts or something like that. I did recover and learned the term (walk it off).

I had the old scooter motor running in a few days, and started gathering parts and pieces for the building of a go cart. On a very limited budget I had to make do with what I could gather. Old pieces of tubing from the rail yard scrap pile, an old mercury car steering box from the machine shop around the corner, and dad found some wheels, sprockets and chain. I could do all the welding at the shop at my high school.

When it was all together and running I was ready to try it out. I pushed it to the huge open paved lot alongside the Webster street that goes through the Posey tube. I think it was Bob Perata that was with me, pushing to get the motor fired up. Once it started I found out that it was geared a little to high. The motor started going chug, chug, chug, trying to gain R.P.M. As the speed increased the motor started smoothing out and off I went. The pavement was un-even and a little rough. The seat I was sitting on was just sheet metal welded to the underside of the tubing. This was the first weld that failed. Just the back part of the seat dropped to the pavement. I had a quick lesson about metal scrapping on pavement. It produces heat. Lots of heat!

I let off the throttle and started slowing down, but I wasn't slowing down quick enough. By the way I hadn't put any brakes on this thing yet. I thought I would add them some time later. I held myself up off the seat until I came to a stop. We found a piece of plywood to sit on and ran around until we ran out of gas. Another good day. No one got hurt, and with a little welding and a gear change, and just maybe a brake of some kind, we would be back at it again soon. Boy do I love building stuff and making things run. I know now that learning these things as a young boy set my course in life. I have been fixing stuff for as long as I can remember. "Thanks Dad for taking that time with me when I needed it most".

The pager incident

About 1998 a good friend, Phill Dold gave Gwen and I the use of his boat slip in Tahoe Keys for the summer. We had a 26 foot MacGregor sailboat at the time. It made it so easy to just drive up and hop onto the boat, be on Lake Tahoe in a matter of minuets. No towing, launching, or rigging the mast and sails. Friends could meet us at Tahoe Keys and we could be on the lake like, whoosh.

On one trip, I was up on the lake alone. I had sailed around most of the day and had sailed into Emerald Bay just as the winds had kicked up and the lake had turned into a churning, white capped monster. Inside Emerald Bay tho, it was as calm as glass. I went deep into the bay and as I backed into the West shore I dropped the anchor, kept backing to set the hook, and got within ten feet of the shore. I shut off the motor, and with the stern line tied to the back of the boat, jumped in and swam to shore, looped the line through a root of a tree, then swam back to the boat. If any of you have gone swimming in Lake Tahoe, you know this is no small feat. The water is about fifty degrees on a warm day.

I had enough daylight left to set up the barbecue, cook a nice steak, sit out under clear skies and watch the changing colors as the sun set. I also had a 12 volt T.V. VCR set so I was watching a movie, Star Wars I think, when someone rowed up behind the boat to see if I had any spare propane canisters. He ran out on his barbecue before he could finish his meal. I tossed him a spare bottle and he paddled back to his boat. His wife yelled a thank you from about a fifty yards away. It was so quite in the bay that I think you could whisper and be heard. What a wonderful day this was. Tahoe has a beauty all of its own.

About nine o'clock that night my pager went off, beeping. The only cell phone I had was wired into the truck back at Tahoe Keys. The pager just shows numbers, and if you have the right program on your computer you can send a text message. Well, we didn't have that at home, just a phone calling a pager and leaving a phone number. This one was from my wife. No message, just the phone number. Well Gwen knew where I was so I figured she just wanted me to check in with her in the morning as I was out and about. A few minuets later the pager goes off again! The same thing, my home phone number on the pager. I figured, OK she just did it twice to be sure I got the page. A few minuets later, a third beep, beep, beep, and its home again. OK, there must be something going on at home that required three pages in a row. Three of anything in a row means get moving.

Thank goodness I looped the stern line around that tree root so I didn't have to go swimming at nine thirty at night. I started my motor to warm it up, pulled in the stern line, went on deck, and as I was pulling in the anchor, the fellow I had given the propane to yelled over to me to see if I was having a problem. I told him that I had just gotten three pages to call home, and that I was heading over to Tahoe Keys. He waited a moment, then asked me if I knew what was going on out on the lake. It was sooo quite where we were that I had forgotten that a wind event started as I pulled into Emerald Bay. I asked him if he knew anything. He yelled back, thirty five to forty mile an hour winds from the West! Well, twenty five mile an hour winds are a white knuckle event if your under sail, so I thought I would just use the motor and scoot back to Tahoe Keys.

I yelled a thank you for the heads up to my new propane friend as I finished pulling in the anchor. I motored out to the mouth of Emerald Bay. As I cleared the mouth of the bay and made a slow right turn, I couldn't make out anything on the far shore. I had my running lights on and with the back lit compass I took a heading that should get me close to the entrance to Tahoe Keys. Unless you run into another boat, there is nothing to run into. And what idiot would be heading out on a night like this. So far, just one.

The waves were somewhere between four and six feet high. I was looking up at water when you should always only have to look down at water. The wind was howling like a banshee. I throttled the motor back to a fast idle. I had both rudders down and locked, and no sails were up. The mast alone was pushing me along faster than I wanted to go but I needed the motor pushing to keep control of the steering. I was going just a little faster than the waves, so I would climb up and surf down each wave. As you do this the boat tries to do something that is called "broaching" which means diving into a turn as you descend each wave. If you allow this to happen the boat will roll over as it hits the bottom of the trough. Its a game of playing with the throttle to maintain control. The bow plow's into the wave, then you climb up and surf down the other side and have to throttle up again and plow into the next wave. It could be fun if you were looking for something like this. I wasn't! It was a great lesson on boat handling tho.

When I was within a quarter mile of the Eastern shore I finally saw the entrance lights to Tahoe Keys. As I approached the shore the waves fell to a reasonable size and steering became easier as the boat went into the channel to the marina. Inside the marina the wind slowed down some, but all the boats that had masts were clanging and banging with loose sails and rigging. It was nice to be tied up to a dock. It took about an hour to cross the lake. I felt like I had just crossed the North Atlantic. I was cold, wind blown and worn out. A very exciting trip, but my thoughts were with my wife and what might be going on at home. It was about quarter to eleven by the time I got to the truck and made the call home.

After a couple of rings, Gwen sleepily answered.
I asked, "what's up?"
Gwen answered, "what do you mean?"
Well you paged me three times.
Oh, sorry, I just wanted to be sure you called when you got the chance.
False alarm, but a very exciting night time sail.

All of our rings.

After I proposed to your mom and she accepted, I put a diamond engagement ring on her finger. It wasn't very big, but I was in heaven with my sweetie on my arm. We had been dating for about a year and I had just bought a new Porsche. A guy has to have his priorities.

At some point after our engagement we went to a drive -in show. We were watching the show when I spotted a mosquito flying across my side of the front windshield. I smacked at it with the back of my hand, but I missed. As it flew across to the right side of the front window, your mom took a swipe with the back of her hand. screeeeee. That's the sound of a diamond on a window. Boy its a good thing this girl is cute.

When we got married your mom had a Chevy Nova. A 1963 we think. I worked on it for awhile. Looking back we should have kept it, they're a hot item now. We sold it and bought a red sports car. An 850 fiat Spider convertible. What a fun little car. You should have seen your mom with her Saint Bernard sitting next to her with the top down driving all around El Dorado County. What a hoot! I had traded in my Porsche for a International Scout 800 4X4. Another fun ride. We did the four -wheeling thing with it.

Your mom and I took her sports car down a dirt road to the river once to go swimming. The road dead ended and I couldn't get any traction to back out. It was a small car so we just picked up the back end and sort of bounced it around so we could drive out. The diamond in your mom's ring fell out and is still in the sand down that old dirt road somewhere. See, buying a small diamond was a good thing, right?

A few years later we started having babies and your mom's ring was leaving marks on you kids. We opted for plain gold bands. We put the white gold and diamond things away. Your mom and I have picked up some other rings over the years, and we both had some gold things from before we met. A ring that had my first name on it was gold, and quite heavy. My Dad and your Grandma Eloise bought it for me years ago and I had about worn it out. We also had a small gold necklace that had belonged to your Grandma Eloise. Lots of memories in all that stuff, but it was just sitting around not being used.

A few months ago your mom decided we should do something with all our old gold stuff. We went to a place in Burk Junction and had two new wedding rings designed. We had the shop use all our old gold stuff to make the new wedding bands. How cool is that. All the really meaningful things we both grew up with are now built into our new wedding bands.

I have been doing battle with a wisteria vine that I planted 22 years ago in our front yard. It has just about surrounded the house. I call it the "big green thing". Both of our rings are designed around the big green thing. Very appropriate for both of us. Two kids and four grandsons later, 38 plus years of marriage, and all those memories built into these two new wedding bands. How cool is that?