Express - December 25, 2000
By Raffique Shah
IT was the scooter that did it. You know, the metallic, imported wheels-on-your-heels version of what was once both a boy’s thrill-cum-mode-of-transport that is being touted as the “Christmas craze” in the USA and other developed countries, the one that has local children gaga this Christmas.
Parents are forking out between $200 and $500 for the toy that could never yield as much fun as we had with scooters in days of old, meaning forty-or-so years ago.
When I first saw advertisements for the modern version of what we boys (and more than a handful of girls) hand-crafted decades ago, I did a double take. True, the millennium scooter might be stronger than wooden ones we made, although, given the pride that went with building the old scooters, they were very sturdy and repairable.
Mostly, though, it set me thinking about how times have changed, how kids no longer have the healthy fun we did so many Christmases ago, not to add the pride of making your own toys. But that, I guess, is the price of progress.
For those who are too young to remember, let me tell you what it was like to build your own scooter, the wiles that were used to secure the required materials and the pride that went with putting the parts together.
Firstly, one had to secure at least two pieces of sturdy one-by-six (inches, Dumbo) board. That in itself was a challenge, since one couldn’t drive into a hardware store and order the parts: there was no fun in that, and in any event, most boys couldn’t afford it.
The fun was in “securing” pieces of lumber your father had stored somewhere, or swiping a neighbour’s bridge (yes, folks did use wooden planks to bridge the drains in front their houses), or, blessing of blessings, benefit from the generosity of the village carpenter or someone who had just completed some form of construction.
Of course, there were risks. Many a time you would have cut the wood to the required lengths, made the necessary cuts to fit the bearings, only to have your old man bear down on you, screaming: “Boy, what the hell yuh do wid dat piece ah wood ah put away to make a dabla (or whatever)!”
He would reach for his leather belt or the household whip, and that would have meant the end of your dream scooter and time for you to start screaming, howling in pain.
To get a little technical (in case some daring boy would want to relive an era long gone), softwood-like cedar was not first choice, yet one had to be careful with certain types of hardwood that split easily when nails were driven into them.
Older boys, teenagers who had real elbow power (no power saws, eh!) would opt for mora or crapaud (types of lumber, not insects!) for the base (that’s where you rest the idle foot). The scooter-builder would also have acquired, by whatever means, a couple of hinges, at least two bearings (solicited or stolen from the village garage), and assorted nails.
The base had to be cut to allow the bearing to fit neatly at the rear end. Securing it in place was a challenge, since it had to be sturdy enough to take the rider’s weight.
The upright section also demanded careful crafting. Again, the bearing, which was the front wheel, had to be well attached to the bottom (shoddy work could see it breaking loose just when you picked up speed downhill, with bruising consequences that I can testify to!). And the power behind steering the scooter lay in the hinge that had to be accurately attached, bonding base to upright while allowing for the latter to turn left and right. Then the kid-craftsman added a handle to the top of the steering section.
That, then, was the basic scooter. But if one wanted a work of art, not to add something that served multiple purposes, one had to go further. Brakes were important, although there were much fewer motor vehicles on the road in those days.
That was a simple addition: a piece of rubber, preferably from an old bicycle tyre, would be tacked over the rear wheel. When the rider wanted to slow down or stop, he would lift the “driving” foot onto the rubber and that would cause the back wheel to decelerate.
Then there was the box. “Box?” you ask. Yes, box I say. In those days, it was customary for Ma to send you on errands to the village shop that, in many instances, was some distance away from home. So why walk when you had a scooter? But then, where would you store the ounce of Norwegian cooking butter or piece of saltfish or whatever? Aha! Creativity came into play. A neat box was built to the front of the base, sometimes with a rubber-hinged cover. Depending on its size, one could store a decent amount of goods in it.
The scooter was still incomplete, though-at least for the “craftsboy” who took pride in his handiwork. Some rubber neatly wrapped around both ends of the steering handle provided good grip. A touch of paint didn’t hurt (except your old man, who, again, might have stored it for other purposes—in which case you ended up being hurt!). Nor did reflectors to the front and back (taken from discarded bicycles) or other “dressings” that the builder could lay his hands on. Even number plates or names were painted on the more sophisticated versions.
In the end, though, what you had was one happy kid who used his creativity, sometimes with the help of his father or an older friend. And he would go scooting away, whether it was to make “message” (that was ancient lingo for “groceries”) or purely a leisure run. Friends would race each other to see who was faster. Usually, it was the kid with the swiftest and more powerful “driving” leg.
Whatever it was used for, it certainly provided much fun for those whose parents could not afford to buy them balloons, far less pedal cars or guns-cum-holsters or xylophones or bicycles.
It was fun, too, because the roads were much less crowded, not to add infinitely less dangerous than they are today.
Which is why I think that parents who are lapping up the “hi-tech” scooters for their kids should supervise their outings on the devices. In my boyhood days, we could have gone for miles scooting away, sometimes in groups, without our parents having to worry about our safety. No more, that luxury.
The scooter was not the only “toy” that was hand crafted by those who could not afford to even enter stores at Christmas time. We made beautiful tops from guava wood and mastered the art of spinning those tops. The better top spinners would wind up the marlin, let loose his top in the air, catch it on the palm of one hand, and preen as it spun there to the envy of those who could not perform the feat.
Kites, too, were works of art that grew out of the Christmas season and ran into the crop time (dry season). “Zwills” made from flattened crown corks were commonplace, and many women who could not afford to buy their daughters dolls made them from pieces of cloth.
So the shiny scooters in the showrooms are attractive, modern, even high-tech. But the joy they bring to kids must be less than that experienced by the “craftsboys” of yesteryear, those who made the toys they played with at Christmas time and beyond.
Still, even at my age, I won’t mind mounting the metallic model and scooting away into the distance, the wind in my face.
Having made and ridden many a wooden scooter, I still remember the exhilarating experiences I enjoyed-and often long to relive.
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Copyright © Raffique Shah
