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Motorcycle In The Creek

Looking Back – Motorcycle in the Creek

By J. Bryan Wasson

My childhood dream was to become an Abilene, Texas Police department Motor Officer. My uncle, J.T. (Bus) Wasson had been a part time Abilene Police Motor Officer. In the late 30s and early 40s, Officers of the Abilene Police Department worked seven days per week. The only way Police Officers could get a day off or take a vacation was for a “relief officer” to take their place. My Uncle was one of these “relief officers.” He was a full time City of Abilene employee in the Electrical Department. When a Police Motor Officer needed a day off, my uncle filled in.   A City electrician became a Police Officer. He was a riding partner of family friends J.D. Woodard and C.A. Veteto.

I often visited in the home of my Uncle and Aunt. My Uncle would come home for lunch riding that police motor. I would stand and look at the motorcycle and climb up and sit astride it.  I knew that some day I had to ride one of those Abilene Police Department Motorcycles.

Family friend, J.D. Woodard became my boyhood hero. I would stand on the side of the street, just hoping he or one of the other motor officers would ride by.  J.D. Woodard went on to become a Captain on the Abilene Police Department. He later served as Constable of Taylor County and later was elected Sheriff of Taylor County. C.A. Veteto went on to become a Captain and later Assistant Chief of the Abilene Police Department until his retirement.

After a hitch in the U.S. Air force, the first part of my boyhood dream was achieved. I became an Abilene Police Officer in 1954.  About a year later, the second part of my dream was achieved. I became a motor officer.

The motorcycle squad in Abilene was too small to have a formal training program such as the Motor School conducted by many large Departments. However, a City Park in the north east part of town known as Will Hair Park became our training grounds.  Traffic cones were set up in various patterns by our Traffic Sergeant. We would be required to do various maneuvers between the cones without knocking over cones. Our Traffic Captain, F. M. Pruitt was a former motor officer. He provided a lot of tips and instructions.

One of the things Capt. Pruitt encouraged us to do was to do as much off street riding as possible. He believed that the skills necessary for riding a motorcycle on the street were learned off the street.  He also said, “You can not work traffic if you are part of the traffic.” We used those skills learned riding off the street to survive on the street as we enforced traffic law.

In those days, Motor Officers worked six days per week, Monday through Saturday. On Saturdays we had no School Zones to work and not as many funeral escorts as through the week.  It also seemed that traffic was lighter and there were far fewer traffic accidents to investigate on Saturdays. For these reasons, Saturday was the day when we tried to do the bulk of our off street riding. We often rode around the City Owned Lake Fort Phantom Hill for this purpose. It also seems that we were often drawn to our familiar training grounds in Will Hair Park.  Vacant parking lots were another good training area. At the time I also owned my own private motorcycle. While off duty, I loved to do what we called “dragging iron”, which was weaving in and out of the painted lines that designated the parking spaces as well as doing figure eights with our crash bars dragging on the pavement. In many parking lots there was a long straight line much like the center stripe on a public roadway. Parking space lines angled from this line on both sides of the line. These lines averaged about 4 inches in width. I loved to ride these long straight lines. I got very good at this. This skill, however,  soon turned out to be a literal down fall.

In the north east corner of will Hair Park was a dirt embankment. It was about 15 feet high from ground level.  On one end of the embankment was a gentle slope. It was easy to ride to the top which was a narrow ridge. The ridge was too narrow to turn around. The only way to get down was on the side which was nearly straight up and down. We learned to slide the motorcycles sideways down the sides of this embankment. It was good training. On occasion, I would get to the top and chicken out. In these cases fellow Motor Officer Paul Angleton, who later retired as Assistant Chief, would mount my motor and slide it down the embankment.

A creek ran through the park.  At that time, right next to the dirt embankment a smaller creek branched off the other creek and ran across the north east corner of the park. This smaller creek was shallow. It had gravel in the bottom and clear water ran rather swiftly over the gravel. A six inch pipe of some sort crossed the creek. The pipe was two or three feet above the water. Due to dirt work done by the City, this smaller creek no longer exists.

Riding a Police motorcycle is inherently a little bit dangerous. On at least two occasions, I decided to do something that was not only dangerous, but stupid. This was about to be one of those occasions. My skill at riding a painted line (the center strip on a paved road) no more than four inches wide was what led me to believe that I could accomplish what proved to be a foolish effort.

I was on routine patrol on the north side of town. I decided to ride through the park for a few minutes. I was in the north east corner of the park when I decided to return to my patrol on the streets. Rather than turn around and ride to the entrance of the park, I looked at that six inch pipe which was buried until it reached the creek on both sides. If I could ride a four inch painted stripe, surely I could ride right across this six inch pipe to the street just beyond and outside the park. This was a serious error.

If I had just looked straight ahead, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have been on the other side of that creek within a few seconds.  About half way across, the full realization of the magnitude of what I was doing came to me. I suddenly realized that it is impossible to make a U turn while riding a motorcycle on a six inch pipe, three feet above a creek bed. I became scared and looked down. Out of instinct, I put my feet down. My feet were dangling in mid air. The next thing I knew was that I was in the water with a motorcycle on top of me.

I immediately got up and up righted the motorcycle. I then realized that one man alone could not get the motorcycle out of the creek. I picked up my microphone and transmitted a message asking if there was a Motor near Will Hair Park. I received a reply from a patrol car indicating that they were within a few blocks. My response was, “Negative, thank you, but I need a Motor Officer.” If a couple of Officers assigned to a patrol car learned of this incident, I would never live it down.

Shortly after this conversation, fellow Motor Officer Joe Taylor responded that he was about 15 or 20 blocks away.  My response was, “I will meet you in the north east part of Will Hair Park.”

Soon Officer Joe Taylor arrived. He was rather amused at the sight he observed.  He was very curious as to how in the world I got myself and my motorcycle into that creek. The two of us together got the motorcycle out of the creek. I then mounted my motorcycle, rode to my home and put on a dry uniform.     02-15-03, JBW
Tales of the Abilene, Texas Police Department

Motorbikes Everwhere

Motorbikes Everywhere

Back when motorcycles first came into being, they were nothing more than bicycles with engines on them. Even today, motorcycles are often called bikes. After motorcycles evolved  to their current state, what we now call motorcycles, there were and are still two wheeled vehicles on the market that are not much more than a bicycle with a motor. These machines were and are still called motorbikes. These motorbikes are not to be confused with what we call mopeds. Mopeds retain the pedals of a bicycle, but have an engine. The engine is started by pedaling as one would while riding a bicycle. I did some recent Internet research where I found that there were some motorbikes other than what we refer to as mopeds that retained the bicycle type pedals as a means of starting the engine.

As a kid in Junior High and High school, I remember a number of students that had the Whizzers. Whzizer manufactured a motor bike as well as engine kits that could be mounted within the frame of a bicycle. I also remember a neighbor teenager who built his own homemade motor bike from a standard bicycle. He mounted a pulley on a lever that he could pull to tighten the drive belt. This was his clutch.

There is another two wheeled cousin to the motorbike. This is the motor scooter. The rider of a motor scooter most often sits with his feet in front of him on a platform as opposed to sitting astride the machine.  Motor scooters  often have balloon tires that or most often smaller in diameter than those on motorbikes. Motor scooters also evolved into three wheel versions. During WWII Cushman built scooters with two wheels in the front that supported a big cargo box. The U.S. military adopted many of these machines. Ice cream vendors also used them with an icebox replacing the cargo box. Dry ice was used to keep the ice cream frozen.  As a kid, I often purchased ice cream from vendors riding these 3 wheeled Cushmans of the streets of Abilene.

 Later Cushman came out with a reverse of this machine with two wheels in the back called a Truckster.  This version was modified for mail delivery and for police work. and parking control. To the best of my knowledge these Cushman vehicles are no longer manufactured, but many police departments continue to use them.  The Abilene Police Department even bought a 3 wheeled Cushman scooter, but that is another story.

Both motorbikes and motor scooters were very popular in this country during the early 40s. Motorbikes continued to be popular through the 60s and motor scooters are still popular today. In addition to the 3 wheeled Cushman (mentioned above), some police departments use the two wheel motor scooters today. I believe there is still a valid use of motorbikes and motorcycles in police work today. Motor scooters are more popular in Europe than in the United States. Motorbikes are extremely popular in Asian countries.

 A very active Cushman club is presently in operation with chapters throughout the nation. Today, (08-21-02), while exploring the Internet, looking for photos of Simplex &  Servi-Cycle motorbikes I learned that the Simplex / Servi-Cycle are still very popular and many collect and restore these old machines. I will have to admit, that they possess a style and beauty that makes you wonder why they are not still being produced.

While I was in Junior High School, many teenagers were riding the Simplex and Servi-Cycle motorbikes. These were my favorites of all the motor bikes. As a teenager, I would have loved to own one of these motor bikes. They looked like a little Harley with crash bars and foot boards. They even had a luggage rack behind a large solo saddle.

My Uncle, Robert Sterling lived with us during that time. He owned a motorbike called a LaRay Power cycle. It was about the same as the Simplex and Servi-Cycle with one exception. It had a 20 inch wheel on the rear, and a 26 inch wheel on the front. This made for a rather strange looking machine. I rode it a lot, however, and enjoyed it greatly. Robert later gave it to his younger brother, Mack. Mack put a Briggs & Stratton washing machine motor on it and increased the power. Like myself, Mack became an Abilene Police Officer as an adult.

By the time I joined the Abilene Police Department, Montgomery Wards was a dealer for one of these motor bikes. I believe it was the Servi-Cycle. Abilene Boiler Company (ABC) was a dealer for Simplex. I came very close to purchasing one of these machines, but did not. I have since regretted this decision. When I started with the Police Department, I walked a beat in the downtown business district on the mid-night shift. I would have used the motorbike for transportation around my beat.

During the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force had discovered a use for these motor bikes. Dyess Air Force Base like many other Air Force bases had purchased a large quantity of motorbikes, either Simplex or Servi-Cycle or both. Maintenance personnel used them for transportation around the flight line. They were excellent transportation for that purpose.  It should be noted that the Air Force now uses the Kawasaki Mule for that purpose on flight lines now. The U.S. Army is now using the John Deer Gaiter in Afghanistan. The Gaiter is a 6 wheel machine much like the 4 wheel Kawasaki Mule. It has been reported that the Gaiter is an excellent vehicle in that terrain. The Gater also comes in a 4 wheeled version.

Like the U.S. Government does for nearly everything that works, the Air Force chose to get rid of the motorbikes at Dyess AFB. The Air Force sold them for $40.00 each.  After 5 years in the Traffic Division as a Motor Officer, I was promoted to Sergeant. As a motor officer, I was used to riding my motorcycle to and from work. I needed an economical means of transportation other than my car. I decided that one of these former Air Force motorbikes  was an excellent means of transportation . I was the first Abilene Police Officer to purchase one of the bikes. When I rode it to work the first time, it drew lots of attention.

The greatest advantage for riding the motorbike to work was that you always had a place to park.  Parking space near the City hall was very scarce. There was a triangular shaped space on the parking lot south of the City Hall which was called the ramp. There was a utility pole where an east/west alley and a north/south alley intersected. The space was too small to park cars, so police motorcycles were often parked there. I chose this space to park my new $40.00 motorbike.

A number of officers asked where I had purchased the motorbike and how much I paid for it. It was not long before a number of police officers had purchased these motorbikes including Captain Martin. It was not much longer before five or six motorbikes could be found parked in this small triangular space at nearly any hour of the day or night.

It was a nice looking piece of machinery. It was a very economic and dependable means of transportation around town. It was not bad on the highway either, if you did not have to climb a long steep hill or face a strong headwind. Five or six years ago, there was a photo of a group of these motorbikes published in Cycle World magazine. This photo brought back a lot of memories.

I probably would have kept this motorbike for many years, If I had not made a big mistake. I put a windshield on my motorbike. It looked nice. I had ridden a police motorcycle for 5 years with a windshield, so it seemed like a natural thing to do. The little engine simply did not have enough power for this. If you happened to have a good tail wind on the highway, it acted like a sail and was a big help, but it simply did not have the power to push against a head wind. Shirley and I were living at Potosi at the time. One night I got off at 11:00PM and started home. I was facing a strong headwind nearly all the way. If I had had a couple of wrenches in my possession, I would have stopped and removed the windshield, although I am not sure how I would have carried the windshield home if I had done so. I think this one ride was a big influence in my selling the motorbike.

Not long after I sold my motorbike, the group of these vehicles parked in the triangle area on the parking lot at City Hall gradually became smaller and smaller. The numbers declined until there was none.

It very well may be that the greatest contribution I ever made to the Abilene Police Department was causing a group of police officers to purchase Simplex and Servi-Cycle motorbikes from the U.S. Air Force.  Since I was the first to sell my motorbike, I seemed to also have an influence on the others to sell there motorbikes.

I remain intrigued by the Simplex/Servi-Cycle motorbikes. I have learned that a 3 wheel version called a truck was produced starting in 1949, but I have only seen photographs of this version. The 3 wheeled version was available in both an open box and a covered box with a lid that was hinged.

I have since learned by research that a Harley Davidson dealer by the name of J. Paul Treen felt a need for a small lightweight motorcycle. He built a number of prototypes before starting production in 1933. The rocker clutch was added in 1935. Production of these great little motorbikes stopped in 1960. Restored Simplex/Servi-Cycle motorbikes are available today, but they are not cheap.

It should be noted that many police departments today, including the Abilene Police Department (at the time this article was written) have bicycle patrols. I think that small motorbikes like the Simplex and Servi-Cycle if they were available would prove to be a valuable police tool today. The New York City P.D. uses both  two and three wheel scooters in addition to motorcycles at this time.

This story is a revision of a much earlier story I wrote in a manuscript entitled Tales of the Abilene Police Department. Revised 08-23 & 24, 02, JBW

Second revision, 11-15-2010, JBW