THE CUSHMAN
Submitted by:   Robert J. Severson

Back in 1951 I had a neighbor who owned a Whizzer motorbike.  It was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen, being just twelve years old and experiencing a changing economy and rationing after WWII.  Dave gave me a ride on it, and of course I became hooked.  Anything with two wheels and a motor was a definite topic of interest to me.  I just had to have my own motorized two-wheeler!

My Pa owned an auto body shop at the time, and I used to work for him in the summertime, sanding cars and masking them off, in preparation for painting.  It was hard, gritty work.  The shop was new, and he couldn’t pay me much….as I recall it was fifty cents an hour….hardest fifty cents I ever earned.

Some of Pa’s workers, mostly high school dropout types, rode motor scooters and motorcycles to the shop.   Whenever I could sneak out for a minute, I would admire those machines, no matter what size or condition I just loved them!  I couldn’t let Pa catch me doing it, as he was a nose-to-the-grindstone type of guy who didn’t believe in work breaks, much less unions, and ran a tough shop.  He would ask me to squeal on anyone who looked like they were slacking….as when he ran for parts and the workers would take turns talking on the phone to their girlfriends!

Well, anyway.  About the Cushman.   One day Pa got in a paint job on an old Model A Ford two door.  I sanded it and prepped it.  No rust on this puppy; the metal was something like sixteen gauge and  had just a perfect body.  I got it all ready to squirt, and Pa did the honors.   He then parked it out in the back room and waited for it to dry.  Since it would be a lacquer job, it would be my task to rub it all out when it was dry; then to polish up the old chrome bumpers.

One of Pa’s other helpers, Chuck,  showed up a few days later, driving a pickup with something interesting in the bed.  I sneaked out and looked.   It was something called a Cushman, a real scooter!  Looked pretty beat up.  I asked Chuck about it, and he said that it needed some motor work but it could probably be made to run.  Also said something about a mosquito [later I learned he  had said  “magneto”] that was busted. He said he had planned to fix it up and get it running, but  had been putting in so much time at the body shop that he didn’t seem to get around to it.   He alluded to being annoyed at having it shifting around in the truck bed like that, but didn’t seem ambitious enough to take it out and work on it somewhere.

Okay, so you have to understand that this piece of junk looked like about the coolest thing I had ever seen.   I wanted it, running or no.  Flustered and amazed at my good luck, my mind began to run at sixty miles per, trying to figure out just how I might net this prize.  This town was ever so small, and used scooters just weren’t often seen, let alone the condition.  There were no dealers either, except for Harley, and they sold more chain saws than motorcycles.  Although all one needed was two bucks for a plate and a driver license, insurance and helmets were not required back in those days.

I asked Chuck if he would be interested in parting with the Cushman, at a “fair price.”  Knowing him, he probably “stole it” for five bucks, somewhere out in the country.  Geez, it couldn’t be worth much more than that, at least not that I could figure.  Not running and a broken “mosquito” sounded pretty shaky to me, and with it being all dinged up and all.  But in my eye’s imagination, I saw a work of art, complete with red paint and pinstripes.  And I knew that Pa could paint it up after we got it running. 

Pa raced an old ’37 Ford coupe jalopy at nearby fairgrounds on Sunday afternoons.  I had handed him tools as he worked over the engines on that car, and was beginning to acquire a certain amount of knowledge about mechanical mysteries. Once, when I pointedly asked him several weeks back, he told me that yes, motorcycles and scooters had similar mechanicals that made them burn gas and  go, like cars. He explained to me   four-stroke theory of combustion and even loaned me an old shop manual on the ’37 ford, which showed the innards of the engine, and how it all fit together, and how he could make the valves bigger and make it go faster…..

At some point I need to get  Chuck alone and see about some kind of deal we might put together to buy the scoot, of course if Pa approved, and of course, if Ma would back him up on this, and assuming that Chuck would part with it.  At any rate, after carefully planning and executing, Chuck agreed to part with the “machine” for twelve bucks, after some stiff negotiations with Pa, and I would get five dollars credit for the pristine job I did on the Ford, and then would have to work off the rest.  The rule was that I could only work on the Cushman on my own time [actually I had very little of “my own time,” as Pa had me slaving away all this summer, sanding cars and doing all the scutwork that he nor  his other paid help would put up with].  And, furthermore, I couldn’t ride it until it was overhauled and painted and in a finished condition.  And THEN I could ride it ONLY in the cemetery near our home, which had miles of two track roads running through it, along with the occasionally misplaced tombstone, which created havoc with tires and wheels.

There were no helmet laws or requirements for insurance in those days.  One did have to have a driver license first, however.  Since I was just 12 I did not have one.  So, no plate for the scoot.  However, Wheaties Cereal was giving away a miniature car license plate as a prize in each box, so I began to eat Wheaties with a vengeance, to the point  where my mom was beginning to wonder.  What I desperately wanted was a Michigan license plate, which was about the size of a scooter plate.  I never did get one, but did get a Hawaiian plate which was colored similarly to Michigan.

Overjoyed, I put the Hawaiian plate on the Cushman and proceeded to take the scooter over to the Lutheran cemetery, where I spent much time maneuvering up and down the two track roads therein.  Then, I got brave, and took it on the road.  Once I was being followed by Barry Holmgren, the sheriff of Manistee County, for about a mile.  Since I was only going 40 mph, he passed me.   But I was so sure he was going to stop me and arrest me on the spot.

At age 14 I finally got my driver license, because I lived over a mile from school, and it was considered un-American or something to have to walk or ride a bike that far back in the fifties.  Normally the age would be 16, but the sheriff gave me special dispensation!  For a road test I had to ride it up and down the block in front of the sheriff’s office.  No cones, no big deal!

For many years, I rode that scooter to school and around the city, even as far away as Ludington.  The magneto was weak and it was not too dependable, so dad put a hotshot dry cell battery on the back of it in order to give the coil a little more juice [actually, the plug wire could throw a spark nearly half an inch with that setup]….he also used an ignition coil from an old Buick that sat in the back  yard.  

Dad finally wrecked it…..he was riding it around the neighborhood one night and old lady Pilarski pulled out in front of him.  His head [bare] hit the drip rail on her 48 Chrysler so hard that he dented the drip rail, and his glasses flew off, over her car, and landed about 30 feet on the road.  Pa lost several teeth, broke his nose, and split his tongue right up the middle in that crash.  But I was most angry with him because he had totaled out my scooter for which I had worked so very hard

            Next would come the Whizzer Sportsman.  But that is yet another story!