The true story about how I went bad.
After WWII we moved to a little town in upper Michigan. The place had little more than 2k people and rationing was still in force. Due to my father's profession as a shaman, we escaped the full impact and had more real butter and red meat than other folks. God is great.
We were not well off by today's standards, but had a few extra advantages. And disadvantages. Anyway, around my 10th birthday I got to wanting a little two-wheeled thing owned by the town welder. This was in 1948. There were only two 2-wheeled and internal combustion powered vehicles in the town. One was a motorized bicycle (belonging to another lucky kid my age), remember those strange creatures? And the other was a Cushman Doodlebug.
The welder wanted $50 and I only had about $25 from my allowance and odd job savings. But, I was in love with the little red bugger that roared like a lawnmower in heat.
At this point my mother got involved and arranged a surprise birthday party whereupon a bunch of my boyhood friends contributed the rest of the money and I got that little Doodlebug with the Briggs & Stratton (or Clinton engine) and either a Model A or B. Somewhere around 1 1/2 hp. Later in life mom turned against my motorcycle ways. The trouble at the time was that every kid from the party thought he/she deserved rides on the bug whenever.
There were 40,000 Doodle Bugs manufactured from the spring of 1946 through the fall of 1948 by Beam Mfg. of Webster City, Iowa. They were produced in four runs of 10,000 each. The first production consisted of Standard Models A (Briggs & Stratton) and B (Clinton). Only 750 to 1,000 of the first production were the Model B, making it the rarest of all Doodle Bugs. All Doodle Bug motor scooters had kick-start engines and were painted red from the factory.
The only accessories available were three headlight/taillight kits which consisted of : 1) Bendix headlight generator with a Do-Ray taillight for B & S only; 2) Do-Ray headlight and taillight with a 6-volt battery which would fit all scooters; 3) Make-A-Lite headlight and taillight with a 6-volt battery which would fit all scooters. In addition, there was one Delta brake light kit that used a type D battery.
Mine had no accessories, was some used and I recall a pull-line starter vs a kick start. But who knows, 'cause my memory sucks and because I have no clear recall about the seat or grip color?
I have Doodlebug stories, but life went on (with dfferent Brit and Jap iron) and then in 1975
I won a prize for this semi-custom modified 1973 Sportster at the Tri-State Auto Show.
In the seventies, I rode this shake 'n bake all around the country. One time I rode back to upper MI for my 20th High School reunion. Lost my electrics outside of Monroe downstate and followed an 18 wheeler up close for 50 miles at night in the rain. For illumination and safety and shelter hanging back about 10 yards at 70mph.
I used to ride alone, stoned and packin' a .38. I should have been dead or in prison long ago. Later on this trip I lost the generator brushes and had to throw "the Hulk" (look closely at the top of gas tank) partially disassembled on a rented trailer and rode down to Minneapolis with an old friend where there was a Harley dealership. If'n I had known a little more about generators, I could have just pulled the brushes off an old VW.
Now I have this beauty...
...Man, if it just had white seats.
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