Camera Acquisition: Encore!

I attended a swap meet at the Puyallup Fairgrounds a couple of years ago. It was largely an auto parts event (after all, it was presented by the Galloping Gerties car club), but there were plenty of old and oddball items of interest scattered everywhere also.

The only thing I bought all day happened to be a camera that I never knew even existed until this nice old man started giving me the salesman schmooz. One of the items he held up was this Encore disposable camera from the 40's or 50's. Wait--what?! It's true--a disposable camera 80 years ago!

Here's a bit of info I found on the web:

The Encore Camera Company was listed at P.O. Box 28, Hollywood, California in the 1940's. The company made a line of disposable cardboard cameras which were to be returned to the company for film processing. The cameras were also given away as a promotion.

The Encore Deluxe Camera was made by the Encore Camera Company in the 1940s and 50s. Designed as a disposable camera, the Encore Deluxe was constructed of cardboard and covered with paper. The paper covering is meant to look like leather. A front and rear set of viewfinders pull up for framing the photo. The camera was factory loaded with film and then after the user exposed the film, they would mail the whole camera back to the Encore Camera Company for processing. There is a slot on the bottom of the camera used for inserting a $1.25 for film processing and return shipping cost. The camera measures 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 5 inches. Since these were disposable cameras, they are hard to find.

Pretty unique, I must say. Here are some pictures of the one I bought, complete with the instructions and everything:

 

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Fast Eddie's Motorcycle Sales (Legitimate or not)

I was stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1979 while I was in the Air Force.

One of my friends was a fellow from New York named Mark Degroat, who rode a beautiful 650 BSA Lightning. It was the first time I had been friends with anyone that rode a British twin. I was enthralled with the look and the sound, and it rekindled the motorcyclist within me. Having been stationed at various remote communication sites in Europe for the last few years, I never got the chance to go two-wheeling, but now I just had to find something to ride! Knowing it was my last assignment of my 6 year enlistment and I wouldn’t be going overseas again, I started looking for a motorcycle to play with. I couldn’t really afford a BSA or Triumph at that time, nor did I have any experience with British bikes. Through someone on base I ended up buying a poor-looking 65-ish Honda 305 Superhawk (also known as a CB77 by Honda.) It was ugly, it barely ran, and was missing the mufflers, had the wrong seat and gas tank on it, and was missing lots of other things as well. I have no idea what I paid, but I’m sure it was very little.

 

As you can see, no side covers, air cleaners, lights, wrong forks and front fender—it was quite a list. Because of the condition of the bike and the fact that I like everything to be operational (I’m kinda anal that way), I spent a lot of time going to visit the Honda dealership in downtown Fayetteville. The main man in the parts department was called Red. He was a pretty good-sized feller, and he knew his way around old Honda’s. One day I had stopped by after something I needed or wanted, only to be told by Red that it was no longer available.

“Tell you what,” he said, scribbling on a piece of paper, “here’s the address to a building ‘cross town where we store and assemble bikes that come in from the factory. You go there and talk to a man named Eddie. He runs the place. He might have what you’re looking for.”

I drove over and found the warehouse easily, and as I got out of my car he came walking out. I don’t know if Eddie was the only employee there or not, but I didn’t see anyone else. Eddie wasn’t a big guy, and he seemed pretty friendly. It was pretty obvious by the color of his face that Eddie was a drinking man. I explained the scenario to him, telling him that Red sent me over. I was not prepared for what came next though...

Inside this warehouse space were rows of older motorcycles. There had to be a hundred of them in there at least! I was in awe. I asked Eddie what the story was, and he told me that they were all motorcycles that had ended up there from Vietnam soldiers and airmen that never came back from the war, and bikes that were repossessed for one reason or another. There were Harley’s, BSA’s, Triumphs, Honda’s—you name it, all covered in years of dust.

“I’m in the market for parts for a 305 Superhawk,” I told Eddie. “I need a bunch of parts, so I was hoping to find something fairly complete.”

“Yeah, Bo,” he said, leading me down one of the rows, “I think we’ve got one over here.” (I believe he called everyone “Bo.”)

There were actually a few of them to pick from. At first I eyeballed one that was complete, but being kinda chickenshit I decided not to jump in with both feet and ask about buying the nicest one in the house. I mean, who the hell was I anyway? Just a 23 year-old punk kid that wandered in off the street. He didn’t know me from Adam. I pointed to a rough-looking semi-whole bike that caught my eye because it had a good seat, gas tank, and even had a hard-to-find lift handle on the left rear of the frame that allowed its rider to easily lift it up onto the center stand. I asked him what the possibility was of me buying the whole bike. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then he said, “Sure, Bo, how’s 40 bucks?” I shook his hand. “Deal.”

I went out to the car and grabbed my bumper-mounted motorcycle carrier hoops and hooked them on and we loaded the bike into them.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. That old parts bike had a lot of the things that I needed to put my junker that much closer to being legal and ready to ride, such as the already-noted seat and gas tank, and other goodies like the whole front end and passenger foot pegs. Hell, my bike didn’t even have a center stand before, let alone that lift handle I mentioned.

 

I told Mark all about it the next day at work, adding that I wanted to go back and ask Eddie about the nice Superhawk I saw in there that day. The two of us went back to see him a couple days later.

I kept telling him about the place as we drove, and when we got there he was just as amazed as I was when he saw what the warehouse contained. I introduced him to Eddie, and then headed over to that near complete 305 I had my eyes on during my first visit. There were stars in Mark’s eyes when he spotted a matching 650 BSA to the one he owned. His BSA was already in beautiful shape, and needed very little, but one of the things he did need was a pair of rear shocks. Up until that time he had not been able to find any shocks for it and had been riding with chrome steel struts in place of them. That’s a hard ride. He negotiated the purchase of the shocks and started unbolting them. Meanwhile, I was eyeballing that nearly complete Superhawk. I just had to have that bike. The mufflers alone almost gave me heart palpitations. Eddie had no titles to any of the bikes, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need a title—I just wanted all the parts I could get my hands on.

When I asked Eddie about the complete bike I wanted, I didn’t think he’d sell it to me. To my surprise he did his usual pause for effect, likely figuring we were a couple of cash cows, wondering what he could stick us for.

“That’s a pretty nice bike there, Bo. I’d have to get a hunnerd for that one.”

I paid him happily and we loaded up. On the way home we were giggling like schoolgirls about the whole deal. We decided from that day on that we would call him Fast Eddie.

I talked to Mark the next day and he was in heaven, riding his BSA with rear shocks for the first time ever.

I transplanted almost everything except the engine from those bikes I bought onto the one I already owned and had licensed. It was like I had an instant restoration. Seat, mufflers, everything. I was still working out in the barracks parking lot at this time, so I didn’t have any storage other than my giant 69 Ford station wagon road cruiser, so I had to actually put old parts back on the non-running bikes just to keep them secure.

The next time we went to visit Fast Eddie was strictly for Mark’s benefit. He wanted to see about a complete bike he had seen on our first visit—A pre-unit (separate engine and transmission) 57 Triumph that was complete. Again, Eddie told him it was going to have to be “a hunnerd” for the whole thing. (I doubt he knew the value of anything there.) Mark was so excited he about tore his pocket getting the cash out. As he was paying him, he said, “Eddie, I don’t know if you’re getting anything out of this deal, but here’s an extra hundred for you,” he said, handing him a stack of bills. Eddie looked pleased as punch, “Well thanks, Bo.” We both knew nobody but Eddie was ever going to see any of that money, but Mark was so beside himself he probably would have given him the shirt off his back to get that Triumph for a measly hundred dollars.

I went back to see Fast Eddie one last time, and like before, I knew what I was after. This time it was for a metalflake green (ugh!) Honda CL77, also known as a 305 scrambler. It was in great shape, and even had hard-to-find “Snuff-or-nots” on the exhaust pipes.

 

Again, Fast Eddie went home with booze money. Here’s what it looked like when I brought it home:

 

It didn’t take much to get it running other than cleaning the carburetors out and putting some new gas in it, and it ran great. And that sound!

Here’s what it looked like after I put new skins on it:

 

I loved that bike even more than the Superhawk. Unfortunately, it was stolen from me after I got out of the service.

Here are a few of the later shots of my Superhawk after I finished wrenching on it:

 

God, I wish I could go back there and visit Fast Eddie.

 

In the Beginning There Were Motorcycles - Part 2: Moving to the Big City

In 1970, Honda released their first 3-wheeler, the US90 (later changed to ATC90.) Dad was smitten. He managed to talk his way into buying a brand-new lime green one, no doubt whining and pouting to mom until he got his way. With its unusual balloon tires as its only suspension, it was quite the machine. It was a whole new way of riding and steering, too, having the rear wheels locked together as they were. You had to lean into a turn like a regular motorcycle, but you had to put all your weight on the footpeg on the opposite side.

 

It was touted by Honda as easily transportable, and their brochures showed it disassembled and actually fitted into the trunk of a small car! You would pop the seat/rear fender unit off, undo the handlebar quick-release latch to turn them as needed, and the rear axle and wheel slid completely out as one unit after removing the opposite rear tire. It was an interesting design:

 

When I finished 6th grade we moved to Auburn, the “big” city next door. By big I mean it had actual stores and sidewalks and cops and everything. During this time dad expanded our family motorcycles to include a Honda Mini Trail 50. It proved so popular in our family that a couple more were added. Now when we went camping there was no bickering about riding. Gone were the “It’s my turn, you’ve been on it long enough” gripes that always led to someone getting pissed off—usually dad.

By now dad’s little motorcycle “business” had expanded to cover all single-cylinder Honda’s, and he also occasionally did repairs for people. As a result of all his bartering, repairing, and upgrading he had accumulated quite a few parts for Honda 50, 55, 65, 70, and 90cc bikes—all their single cylinder models. Sometime during my junior high school years (9th grade?) I approached dad and asked him if he thought there were enough parts to build a motorcycle from. He gave me permission to go ahead, and I jumped in.

First, I built the engine. All I had to go on were his manuals, so I spent a lot of time comparing individual gears, snap rings, shims, and all the other stuff that goes into an engine to pictures and diagrams in his manuals. When I got it all together it ended up being 55cc. When it came time for a carburetor I was stumped because a Honda 55 engine used a “stand up” vertical carburetor, and we had none.

 

Instead, I got out his welder and built an intake manifold out of exhaust pipe and 1/8” steel for flanges, on which I mounted an S90 carburetor like this:

 

The frame was from a 55cc also, and I painted it metal flake purple, because why not? I had no idea what models the wheels were from, but the whole front end—forks and all—were from an S90. (Because his main dirt bike was still his old hot-rodded S90 he had a lot of parts.) It was quite the Frankenstein when it was all finished! I had converted the automatic clutch a manual clutch, and it operated on a toggle switch with no battery. When it came time to actually try to start it, I wasn’t savvy enough to trust that I had everything right, so I went and got my dad off his nap couch. He chuckled, like he knew it would never start. Imagine his surprise (as well as mine) when it started right up! I never did get any pictures of it, but it kicked around the family for several years, getting ridden quite a bit for fun. Dad finally ended up selling it. That was one of my proudest achievements.

Our garage was tiny and there wasn’t enough room for much more than a car, some toolboxes, and our own motorcycles. His motorcycle “shop” if you want to call it that, was our basement. He had a small room packed with all his tools and parts, but due to space he had to work on whole motorcycles in the main area of the basement. That meant he had to haul them down from the outside door that was halfway down the stairs, and back out when they were done. He (we) learned a valuable lesson one day when a bike he was working on backfired and started a fire. The fire department was there quickly, so not much damage was done, but it was truly a humbling experience. No more whole bikes in the basement!

The nicest of the Honda Mini Trails we had ended up getting an upgrade when he pulled the 50cc top end off it, transplanting a 70cc cylinder and head onto it. It was a fun bike with plenty of power for adults. Those minis ended up being carted all over the place because they were so small and portable, like this time we stuffed one into our '61 Mercury station wagon and took it on our trip the Bonneville Salt Flats:

 

Sadly, someone broke into mom & dad’s garage a few years later and stole all 3 of our beloved Mini Trails, and they were never recovered. Dad’s hot S90 and the 3-wheeler were not in the garage though, so they escaped being stolen.

 

In the Beginning There Were Motorcycles - Part 1: The Algona Years

I’ve been around motorcycles my whole life. I can’t remember them not being present in my life in some shape or form.

In the early sixties Honda was making a name for themselves in the affordable motorcycle world. I don’t think he really knew how to ride a motorcycle when he bought his first bike—a used Honda 150. I’m pretty sure he dumped it quite a few times horsing around.

 

We weren’t what you’d call “well off,” but luckily dad was pretty good at horsetrading. That 150 was eventually traded up into a bright red CB160. Actually, it wasn’t his usual trading because he bought this one new. It only took him a couple hours before he dumped it and dented the left muffler. It sure was a pretty bike though.

 

If memory serves me, he didn’t consult with mom first. He got away with it, but it caused mom to buy a new washing machine without telling him.

Back then Honda was our go-to bike brand because they were cheap(ish), plentiful, and easy to work on. Dad learned early on that he needed some way to pay for the little things he needed, like cables, levers, gaskets, etc., so he started a little business. His goal was not to make money, but just to cover all of his own part expenses. He called it Williams & Son. For some reason he didn’t make it plural (I had two brothers and two sisters), but I think he thought it sounded more professional. Who knows. Dad wasn’t real well-educated, but he was definitely a gearhead with a mechanical mind. His teenage years were filled with dreaming over the pages of those pocket-sized mid-fifties car magazines, all of which I still have. Those were the days of shoehorning Cadillac engines into old Fords or whatever else you had handy. Anyway, his little business did well because people then were always looking for parts for their Honda’s. And dad was always breaking something.

Mom also enjoyed riding motorcycles. When she was having a rough day she liked to take whatever bike dad had at the time for a ride around our little hick town of Algona, Washington for a while to clear her head.

The longer he owned the CB160 the more liberties he took with it. Snow? Time to pull the kids around the yard!

 

After a time it became apparent that dad had more interest in dirt bikes than road bikes. There was a hillclimb at the edge of town, and back then you could hear anytime someone was attempting to climb it because in the pre-freeway days sound carried a lot further. When he heard someone attempting to climb it he would hop on his bike and race over to see who and what was going on. He ended up selling his CB160 and bought a Honda S90 (not the step-thru Trail 90.) That was a turning point for him. He ended up stripping and hot-rodding it, turning it into a nicely trail-worthy machine. Straight pipe, ported head, carb from a 250, car coil, and lots of other modifications. He even sent his camshaft down to California to Dempsey Wilson Cams where they put a custom grind on it. It really was very cool bike. It was in the family for many years. Here’s yours truly getting on it in our adjoining 1/4 acre field:

 

To me the S90 was a beast. It was loud and strong. The first time I rode it I could reach the footpegs fine, but not the ground. At one point dad and I were up in the woods someplace on a fairly steep dirt road. There were lots of guys on bikes around, taking turns on seeing who could climb that steep road the fastest. Dad asked me if I wanted to try it. Hell, I didn’t know better, so I said sure. When the hill was clear, he put me on it and held me and the bike up while he gave me last-minute instructions, “Keep your foot on the gearshift so a rock doesn’t hit it and knock it into neutral. Are you ready? Okay, when you start moving just hold it wide open.” Holy shit! I went pretty well for a ways, but little by little started fishtailing. I finally lost it and crashed, scaring the shit out of me. While I lay there crying, waiting for dad to catch up, I got quite an ovation from the other riders!

Once again, dad grew restless. This time he bought a brand new Bultaco 100 Lobito. It’s engine wasn’t much bigger than his S90, but boy would that thing go! As a kid in 5th or 6th grade, it was quite the handful for me, but I did get to ride it from time to time. That was the only 2-stroke he ever owned. I think it was a little to radical for him to use as a trail bike, even though that’s what he bought it for. He ended up only keeping it for a year or so.

As I mentioned already, we weren’t rolling in money. So where did dad get the money for all these things? He was a good mechanic, with a good eye for deals. He would buy something that needed work, do the repairs, and sell it for a nice profit. That technique meant we had a lot of cars over the years.

But that’s another story.

 

Writing Yet Again

I used to blog daily. For years I blogged daily. One day I read that Google will delete inactive accounts after two years of complete disuse, which deletes emails, blogs, and everything else associated with that account. I felt kind of betrayed. I had blindly assumed that anything on the internet would be permanent!

It kind of took the wind out of me to think that my decades of pouring words onto pages will go away in a puff of smoke 2 years after I die. How’s that for a positive vibe? Would that make you want to continue? It made me think, “Did I waste all that time?

Then I read that people don't really read blogs any more. They're more into videos and quick blasts of entertainment. Nobody reads blogs any more?! That just made it worse. To make a long story short, I stepped away from blogging for quite a while.

Now, it seems I've gone and created yet another blog. I must be a glutton for punishment. This one is just a bunch of gearhead stories. 

I still enjoy writing from time to time, and being retired now, I have plenty of time, so here we go again.

 

Sometimes I Feel So Old...

You know, when you start thinking about people, generations, and the passage of time it's really amazing at how much history has taken place during our time on earth. What's kind of mind-boggling is you consider the average person lives until they're 80-ish years old, and if you count backward in increments of 80, it's only a couple lifetimes back that our country was founded! Of course, that's not quite how the timeline works. In reality, if you take one 80-year lifespan and add parents to it, you're only adding, say, 25 years for each generation because our lives overlap instead of play out end-to-end.

Still, a lot has happened in the world since I was born in 1956.

The race for space began. I remember being in grade school and getting the coolest lunch box/thermos combination in the entire world. The Vanguard rocket thermos was best thing ever! Another space memory was the time I was in a Thriftway grocery store in Auburn, Washington, buying a replacement newspaper for one of my route customers that had not received theirs. I was just walking up to the cashier with it when she jumped up after hearing her radio, screaming, "They've landed on the moon! They've landed on the moon!" I ate it all up. I bought space capsule models, I read space trivia on the backs of the boxes while I ate my breakfast cereal. I snacked on Space Food Sticks.

I lived in a time when people had houses and yards. Stay-at-home moms were the norm. There was very little juvenile delinquency because kids had hobbies, they had parents, and they had space to be kids in. Pushed out the door in any weather to "go play" was typical. We were seldom monitored until it was dinnertime or bedtime, and without worry of being preyed upon or abducted. Being an adolescent in the early sixties (who was not raised on a farm) meant learning about the birds and the bees using our peers and the public library. It was decades before internet.

I've watched the evolution of motor vehicles my whole life. I've seen the ubiquitous Chevy V8 go from  needing tune-ups every 30,000 miles and a complete rebuild at 100,000 miles to not even needing to raise the hood for 100,000 miles. Engines now easily last 300,000 miles, but people take it for granted. No longer are cars bought for engines or drivetrain specifics--now people shop for creature comforts and tech interface gadgetry.

I worked at Karl's Chevron in Auburn during the 1973 "oil crisis". The public buying frenzy got so ridiculous that we were only open for gas sales for 2 hours a day, had a $2.00 limit (yes, I said 2 bucks--gas was way cheap then), and alternated days (odd/even) based on the last digit of your car's license plate. Unbelievable. It happened though. We had no shortage really--the consumers created it. My folks knew if they wanted anything filled up they just needed to bring it down after we closed. Our family always had gas.

The variety of products that sprang forth during my lifetime is staggering. Not even counting tech! things we now take for granted, like Velcro, neon highlighter pens, water-based house paints, car tires that hardly ever puncture, the list is so long. For me, the tech end of things is my favorite I think. Now, we can order anything our hearts desire on the internet, our devices keep their own clock time, and almost everything can be made to operate wireless.

Mom Is Gone.

Mom died on June 13th. It wasn't a surprise--she had been rapidly declining in health in recent months. We could all see it. Hell, she could see it. She kept mentioning that her dad "died when he was 84 and I'll be 84 soon" whenever we would get together. In retrospect, I'm sure she knew something was failing.

We made sure to throw a big birthday bash for her 84th at our house. We had everyone there, big balloon decorations, lots of food--it was great. Mom sat in her wheelchair, looking diminutive, weary, and slightly confused. We were so glad we were able to bring it all together for her last birthday. She lived for another 3 weeks.

Mom was an only child, arriving a little later in her parents' lives than most at that time. She had to survive a hovering mother as she grew up that loved to re-live her childhood vicariously through mom as she grew up. "She went to everything," mom would say of grandma, "every practice, every birthday party, everything." It was plain that she grew to hate it as she got older. When she met my dad, he had a "bad boy" charm. He had come into to the world unwanted by his parents that were too busy nightclubbing and gambling, and so was raised by his grandparents instead. Like many boys, he was no stranger to harsh punishment, and when he challenged his grandfather's authority he received it. When he had finally come to our area to live with his real parents, he was a brooding loner, full of teen angst and resentment. Much to the dismay of mom's parents, the two teens grew close, leaning on each other as only another "only child" could.

I never felt real grief when she passed. More like relief. She had been going through a lot in recent times, and it was good she never had to worry about pain or comfort again. No, I've been feeling something else. I can't quite put a finger on. It may have to do with me being the oldest of the five siblings--a kind of "buck stops here" sort of feeling. I feel like I'm watching all the cars of a train pass, then suddenly realizing the last car just went by. I hurry to catch up, finally settling in at the end of the line. I'm suddenly aware that there is no one behind me, and no longer any reason to look back. I'm at the back.

Mom was the glue of the family. She could make dad's income cover all our bases. She kept us fed, she made us clothes, and never missed a horrible school concert we kids performed in. In later years, she worked to keep busy, landing a job across the street at the Auburn High School in their cafeteria. Years later, when dad stopped working she was able to continue, working her way up within the school district cafeteria system until her retirement.

Mom had a huge heart. She was able to take dad back during a time in the 80's when he went philandering, seduced by a female that told him what he wanted to hear. Fortunately, for mom, it didn't last long. Fortunately for dad, mom let him come home. That was mom.

Yeah, I'm somewhat disconcerted. Of course I miss her, but I also have a feeling a something else being missing. Some sort of connection or placeholder--I dunno. Our odd little iceberg of a family (no aunts, uncles) used to be connected at the top of the family tree by mom and dad. Then it was just mom, but the configuration still held. The family unit as we knew it was still intact. Now, with mom gone the whole structure feels as if it's in shambles. There is no family tree, just a few apples on the ground.

Now we siblings face the fact that mom and dad were married very young, and we were all born pretty close to each other--all five of us within a range of 7 years in age. Mortality is no longer too distant to worry about.

R.I.P. mom... I love you.