In the summer of 1963, the Pennington family (which did not yet include Paul) moved to a different neighborhood in east Dallas. One of the first friends I made was Randy Fisher. He was not athletically inclined and thus did not take part in the rough-and-tumble baseball, football and basketball games which were second nature to my brothers and me. Nevertheless, I remember Randy because we were partners of sorts in the mini-bike and go-kart craze of the mid-60s.
Also living close by was a kind, old gentleman named Mr. Huston. We called him “Big Sam” in honor of the first president of the Republic of Texas, for whom the state’s biggest city is named. Mr. Huston kept a go-kart in his garage, seemingly for one purpose—to make the children in the neighborhood happy. Let me stop and say this means only male kids since the girls did not see the attraction. It was not a distaff interest, apparently. Randy and I, and quite a few others, were not shy about knocking on Mr. Huston’s door. I do not recall him ever saying no. But he stated firmly that we could only ride it in the rather long alley separating Van Dyke and Champa streets. His rule was occasionally, discreetly, broken. We took turns going up and down the alley a great many times.
That was not all. Randy and I had a couple of cheap go-karts of our own, but they were not as fast and certainly not as dependable as that of Mr. Huston. I also remember the two or three mini-bikes we owned. How I wished we’d had one of those you could order out of the Sears & Roebuck catalog. Maybe that’s where Big Sam got his go-kart. No, the things we kept, fiddled with and rode were made by students in metal shop at nearby Robert T. Hill Junior High School. As you can imagine, the quality was not too good.
Like the go-karts we owned, they featured basic four-stroke Briggs & Stratton engines actually designed for a lawn mower or an edger. Neither Randy nor I were especially gifted mechanics, and the problems were constant. The engine would not start, a tire would not hold air, the centrifugal clutch would fail or—most common of all—the chain would come off or break. Very seldom, if ever, did we have a go-kart or mini-bike of our own that ran well for more than a few hours at a time.
I once thought it would be educational to take apart an engine and put it back together. Surely that would help me learn how to better make repairs, but guess what? I never got it started again. So not only did we lose an engine, but I realized I had no future as a mechanical engineer.
The time came when Randy and I got our drivers’ licenses, and it was no longer cool to play with go-karts and mini-bikes. I look back on those few years with fondness and a measure of surprise. Our parents only gave us the most basic “be careful” warnings. It never occurred to us to wear helmets, we had minor accidents (more than once I touched a spark plug while an engine was running and got a nasty shock), and we could have suffered injuries of one kind or other, especially when we rode out into the streets and mixed it up with cars.
More than four decades on, I am sure Big Sam is long gone, and who knows where Randy Fisher is? Maybe his kids or grandkids have been treated with a go-kart or a mini-bike. If so, I bet their motorized toys work better than ours did and the girls are included.
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This sounds quite familiar. I lived this as well…..but for me — and my friend Ritchie….it began for us around 1967-68. Ritchie got a homemade minibike from an older kid a couple blocks up the street. We’d never seen anything like it…..the front end was a bicycle…..and the rear was a minibike. It had no clutch…..you pushed it till it started, and when you were ready to stop, you either held on the brake rod (a long rod from the wheel up the side (like a suicde shifter) until it stalled out, or you dumpted it (which then stalled it out). Coolest thing EVER! It was the first one I ever rode, and we’d take turns riding it up and down a little-used side street. It was heaven….we’d hear a motor coming up the alley and run to see what was coming…..an occasional neighborhood kid on a go-kart or a minibke. It was an awesome time!…..the freedom we had at that young age. I learned to fix them and all aspects of them. We later both got better minibikes…..I had 3 after that…he got a Rupp C-350 after the homemade….the absolute Rolls Royce of minibikes then — and forever in my opinion. Ritchie moved away around the time we would both start thinking about driver’s licences, and I let them go then — but not for good. I have several now, and I restore them. I can’t fit on them anymore, but they have a forever place in my heart as the coolest thing ever! Some of them are just magnificent little toys!
David, I never got anywhere near a Rupp C-350. Sweet memories for us both.
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