09-11-2014, 09:15 AM
(09-11-2014, 05:04 AM)gossman_imp Wrote: I remember walking to the tire store 2 miles away to buy a rear tire for it, I ran the old one to the cords and it was very weather checked. Paid the princely sum of $14, quite a lot for a kid who worked the winter months for $1.25 an hour 6 hours a week. Most of my money came in the form of summer work i.e. haying, christmas trees, farm labor. I am not sure that I ever really spent much time washing the bike, I ran it everywhere I could, street, woods, fields, gas was .25 cents a gallon and that little engine was pretty economical. Those boots were a necessity since I couldn't afford to get my tennis shoes dirty. Kids are missing out today IMO, I learned a lot about engines and mechanicals with that bike. My dad wasn't a guy who worked on stuff and was gone a lot anyway so I taught myself to do the work, right down to replacing tires and installing tubes. I even flipped the silly thing upside down and aligned the spokes, not different than the bicycles that I scrounged then. That farmer that let me dig it out of the barn ( I did feed his animals for a week later when they were out of town as a favor for the bike) did a lot for me by giving me that bike. And it's interesting that the police never really made it to big a deal with me as an underaged 14 year old running around town on a bike that wasn't licensed.
Me today and my new to me red Honda, I am really enjoying this bike, almost too much!
Walking? Boots? Tennis shoes? LUXURY! As kids in the '40s and '50s we were so poor we didn't have any feet. We had to crawl to school, shooting kangaroos on the way, skinning them in the afternoon as we dragged ourselves home, so that we could sell the skins for pocket money. If we had pockets that is.
Cheers, and love the bike and the hair. The 70s crop that is.
