I grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa in the ’60s and ’70s. From as early as I can remember I was fascinated with anything that was self propelled. I was begging my dad to let me drive the tractor from the time I was five years old. He finally relented and let me when I was around eleven. The first tractor Dad let me operate was an old Allis Challmers WD. That had a hand clutch that was pretty easy for a kid to operate.

I could barely muster up the energy to depress the clutch pedal on our 1940’s era “M” Farmall but I was determined to do it nonetheless. That was the next tractor Dad let me drive. Dad sold that tractor in 1973, but has since bought another as a collector.

Then I wanted a minibike so bad I could taste it, but had no $$. Since my grandpa knew about my fascination with engines, when I was about 10 he gave me an old reel type lawn mower with a 2 hp Briggs and Stratton engine that didn’t run. I really knew nothing about how an engine worked, but we had an encyclopedia set and I found an article on how a 4 cycle engine worked. I essentially memorized that article and set out to get the engine running.

I now knew I needed three things for this thing to run. Gas, air and spark. I found out the hard way I had spark! I assumed since it turned over I had air, so that left one thing. I took the carburetor off and the little tube that went to the gas tank was plugged with debris. I took a piece of wire and cleaned it out, put it back together, wound the rope (no, their was no recoil on this ancient machine) and voila! It started!

I quickly separated the engine from the mower since I had no interest in using it to cut grass and began to attempt to build a motorized bicycle. That attempt failed, then I tried a go-cart using 2 x 12’s and plastic wheels off of an old grill. That didn’t work either, so I bolted it to the work bench and used and old lawn chair to make some exhaust pipe for it and a wire to run the throttle and I would sit in a chair and pretend the motor was transporting me places.

After I got bored with that, I tore it all apart to see how it worked and put it back together (along with the old original oil) and made it run again. That pretty much clinched it for me. I was destined to be a mechanic.

I did get that minibike when I was 13, more on that later.