On Thursday, I was back at the Jay County Fairgrounds near Portland, Indiana. It’s a place I’ve been to a couple of times before for the Antique Engine & Tractor Show where my friend Terry displays his collection of Wheel Horses. In 2015, my friend Dale met me there. This time I was there for the National Vintage Motor Bike Club annual meet, and it was Dale who had the trailer full of gear. The picture at right shows vintage motor bikes all set to head out of the gate for a fairly slow cruise around the area.
Dale and I were already nearly ten years into our lifelong friendship when we acquired our first motorized transportation. His was an Allstate Mo‑Ped; Mine was a Whizzer. I talk a bit about both vehicles here. I believe Dale’s Mo-Ped was actually much shinier that this example but it never had saddlebags or a windshield. I don’t think either of us knew what a helmet was in those days, either. My Whizzer never looked half as good as those in the picture. That’s a mighty nice looking scaled down replica, too.
Despite the word “motor” in the event’s name, I’m guessing that nearly half of the bikes on the grounds were people-powered. That’s why Dale was there, and the collection in the last picture is the one he brought with him.
Here’s a little better view of the banner at the left of the previous picture. Heart of the City is the name of the bicycle ministry operated by Mission Church Fort Wayne. I stopped by their shop, where Dale and other volunteers repair and recondition bikes for the homeless and inner city’s needy, a few years ago. That’s Dale remounting a wheel after fixing a flat. Orley, another volunteer, was with Dale today but I failed to get a picture. All of the bicycles the two of them brought to the meet are for sale. They are a mixture of Dale’s personal “extras” and some that have been donated to the ministry but aren’t really appropriate for the earn-a-bike program.
This was the first day of the event, and my theory is that most of the traffic was from other participants seeing what everybody else had to offer. Sales were not brisk, but neither were they non-existent. By far the most interesting of the few I witnessed, was this one. I’d noticed this fellow, or at least his hat, during a little walkabout Dale and I did. He is both a collector and an active supporter of some sort of earn-a-bike program in the Detroit area. Some people walked their purchases, and some held a “new” bike’s handlebars to tow it beside the bike they were riding. This guy just slung it over his back and putted away. All that was interesting, of course, but what I thought even more so was the conversation he and Dale had as they roamed among the bikes. With an often foreign vocabulary, they discussed who made what, when they made it, and why this was good and that was bad. I didn’t understand much but I sure did appreciate it. Incidentally, that yellow bike in the first picture is one that Dale fabricated following some Cannondale geometry. There’s a better view here.
Not surprisingly, there were also a few interesting four wheeled vehicles around. We found the Nash woodie on our walkabout. The Amphicar drove by as we sat behind the bikes. As told below, I would see it again in a couple of days.
When this nattily dressed fellow pedaled by, Dale told me that he and his wife Marsha each own a trike like this. He didn’t tell me whether they dress in pure white and wear straw skimmers when they go out riding them but I’m guessing not.
The red Amphicar that we saw in Portland, Indiana, is in the front row of this group of Amphicars in Celina, Ohio. On Saturday, during the annual Lake Festival, an attempt was made to break the Guinness Record for the Largest Gathering of Amphicars which stood, and disappointingly still stands, at 75. This group was slightly smaller at 72. I identified the car seen in Portland by its watercraft license number, and spoke briefly with its owners.
Nothing soothes the pain of a near miss on a world record like a splash in the lake, and many of the cars’ owners wasted little time in doing exactly that.
The question was never if there would be another book, just when and what. The answers are “now” (actually February) and “toll gates”. In my review of Cyndie L. Gerken’s first book, Marking the Miles Along the National Road Through Ohio, I noted that the huge amount of information presented in that book was only a portion of what Gerken has collected and that we would probably someday see “a Gerken penned treatise on bridges or taverns or toll houses or something else” which shows that taking three or four guesses really improves one’s chances of being right. Nailed it!
As she did with her first book, Gerken details her subject in a chapter per county moving east to west. However, before that happens, there is an introduction filled with information about the road and toll gates in general, then chapters on vehicles, toll house architecture, and bridges. Each of these, and the county chapters too, contain numerous photos and stories that color in the detailed information and keep things from becoming boring.
Pictures of gate houses and gate keepers are to be expected, but they are not the only photo subjects presented. This might be the only book available with pictures of the world’s longest bar, grave robbers, a two-headed calf, a Spanish dime, Hopalong Cassidy, and the author’s mother riding in a goat cart. And every one of them belongs.
A couple of Ohio History Connection sites are reopening this weekend after pretty big makeovers. On Saturday I visited Ohio Village which moved from the 1860s to the 1890s since I last saw it. I’ll reach the Hayes Presidential Center, which reopens with new displays after a major renovation. Saturday’s journal has been posted.
