"I’d like to buy that scooter you had…" began an otherwise innocuous conversation at a restaurant this past Sunday night. The person was an old acquaintance of mine – truly an acquaintance rather than a close friend but all of a sudden this old acquaintance brought up a subject that heretofore only a few old friends and I could relive.

When I was about sixteen my dad was probably one of the more lenient parents a teenager could have but then I had no real inklings about anything close to the subject of parent-child relationships then and this time window was just another day in my life. Background wise, my mother had died when I was fifteen and we were living in a castle-like house on one of the major streets in Lancaster. It was just Dad and me at this big old house. My mother had died in September, just as I was starting my sophomore year in high school and my only brother had joined the Army the preceding summer. In all honesty I can only guess it must have been months, perhaps a year, that Dad and I stayed on in the big house.

But I am straying from my story about a "Box on Three Wheels". Being the gregarious person God made me, I somehow latched onto a town character by the name of Henry Weaver Davidson. How in the world I ever got acquainted with this man I will probably never figure out, but perhaps it was his "shop" that attracted me. He had a place (shop, or whatever) in an alley back of Main Street where he had more STUFF than you could catalog in a year. Stacked, hanging on the wall, in the windows, on the tables, shelving and benches. In one of my occasional visits apparently Henry told me about a couple scooters he had in his garage on Wheeling Street. He wanted to sell one and I became his prime prospect.. How I ever convinced my dad to go along with such a deal is beyond me but maybe because we didn’t have a "family car" had something to do with it.

My odd friend got the scooter out to our house and made it clear he would fix anything that wasn’t working. He came out to our house and sat in the back yard working on this and fine-tuning that. In a few days Henry had the little motor on that 3-wheeler going just fine. This town character was the son of a local drug store owner from back in the early part of the 1900’s here in Lancaster and he was well known all over town. Once he made a trip to California on what he called a motorized wheel-barrow. He was the holder of several patents and the only family he had was a sister with whom he shared a house; and the word was he was being "taken care of" by some kind of trust left by his father. His needs and wants were very Spartan.

My motor scooter (similar to one pictured) was a 1942 Cushman 3-wheel Truckster model, with a single engine and 2 speed transmission with only mechanical brakes (not hydraulic). The steering was controlled by the front two wheels between which was affixed a large square box designed to haul parts and packages delivered on a military base. At that time, 1947-48 military surplus made such items available and Mr. Davidson probably picked up two of these old scooters from the Columbus General Depot in Columbus, Ohio.

Once this scooter was up and running it became our family car – as well as the best teenager’s vehicle among my peers. It was certainly not the most attractive or fancy due to its age but it was unique and close to being "one of a kind" in our town. My travels were quite daring. I thought nothing of driving to Columbus, 30 miles away; Zanesville, 40 miles away and the Buckeye Lake area, about 20 miles away. Two of those trips nearly cost me a friendship but I gained a bit of wisdom. The one trip I made to Buckeye Lake was when accompanied by a buddy, we drove up there towards evening and only as kids would, I thought a dry cell battery would "be good enough" to power the two headlights on the scooter. [The generator kit was not on my model – probably stripped before it got to the government auction.] As most adults could have told me that tall dry cell battery would not last long and two candles would have made more light. I drove along a feeder canal slow enough for my buddy to walk in front guiding me lest my scooter became a three wheeled submarine!

On another occasion the same buddy and I were at Buckeye Lake and were about to return to Lancaster. I pulled out onto the road in low gear, maneuvering into the traffic pattern and shifted into high gear. Letting out on the clutch did not produce the usual higher speed but it stuck in low gear. Not being easily convinced, I tried shifting again. Same response. I drove that poor old single cylinder motor scooter – the box on three wheels – all the way to Lancaster in low gear. "Fast-forwarding" -- the successful fix was easily made after I disassembled the gear case and found the shifting collar had been cut off its shaft as slick as any can opener could do the job. Solution was simple: I ordered the part and fixed it.

On another hair-brained teenager plot we made a trip to Zanesville, Ohio, to see my granddad Keadle. I had been having a little trouble with the chain flying off the rear wheel sprocket but what’s that to a venturous boy and his buddy. My friend, Ronnie, and I were truckin’ along quite well, going up and down the hills on the way to Zanesville when we just went over the last big hill before entering the area of South Zanesville. Having gotten over Moxahala Park’s section of Route 22 East, the scooter responded as if the chain flew off [again]. Coasting off the side of the road, I just pulled up the kick starter and kicked it down. Nothing. In fact there was not even any resistance from the engine – it was more like the engine was spinning easier than a well greased ball bearing. And there was no compression. Problem was simple – it wouldn’t go. Solution: Push it into Zanesville; really Putnam and into my granddad’s garage (weaving shop) and see what was wrong. This was probably about eight miles—quite a test for a friendship. My granddad Keadle wove rugs and his shop was an old garage and there was sufficient room to push my scooter into his shop. Next phase of problem-solving: "Call Dad"– what else do kids do? Well, fortunately Dad had a buddy with a trailer and made the 40 miles trip, picked us up, and rolled the scooter onto the trailer. We had done a small job of diagnosis and discovered the piston had pulled apart in the area of one of the rings and all the way home (in my mind) I worked on what I had to do to fix it. No problem – I just ordered a new piston, put in some new rings and I was back in business again.

I must have given a dozen kids a ride in that scooter box because I have had nearly that many men remind me of that unique vehicle. I rode it in all kinds of weather – except after dark; remember, I didn’t have any generator to make the lights work. We used it as a family car to go to the store, run errands and whatever. Dad even got a chance to solo it one night when I had been on a bike ride and ran into a parked car. I had been gawking at a sign shop and lost my concentration to steer my bike and when I hit the car the door handle poked a hole through my right hand between my thumb and first finger. (Remember, this was in the 1940’s when car door handles had an end sticking out.) I went up onto the porch of a house close by and the lady saw my hand took me in and poured Merthiolate [antiseptic] into the wound. I about dropped to my knees. Someone took me to a doctor. While the doctor was treating me I remember hearing a "putt putt" noise – Dad had gotten on my scooter, threw caution aside and drove that "box on three wheels" (without lights) to see what had happened to his son!

Well, as is the case in all good stories this one had to come to an end. No, I didn’t wreck it or nearly kill myself or got stranded again. I became infatuated with the newer models and talked Dad into trading our family vehicle in on a brand new 1948 2-wheeler Cushman motor scooter. Oh, I enjoyed it but it wasn’t near the fun that "box on three wheels" had been. A dozen or more acquaintances of mine still have memories of that old scooter they once got a ride in almost sixty years ago.

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