by Rex Coker

Created on: July 14, 2009

There are geniuses and tinkerers that live everywhere in small towns all over the world. My brother was a tinkerer and spent much of his time coming up with new inventions that would keep him from having to overexert himself during the summer months when school was out. Having to much time on his hands, he would let his mind wander as he would sit down and apply his ideas to paper. Skillfully blueprinting his invention so he could try it out.

The old schwinn bike with the heavy balloon type tires sat upside down for weeks as he attached different things to the gear system of the bike. A DC electric motor he bought from a local pawn shop for twenty bucks and the old battery out of dads old Chevy were fast coming together. The motor was mounted on the main frame just below the bikes seat. The battery was strapped down on the rack over the back tire and fender. Two cables were run along the frame to a switch mounted on the cross bar between the handle bars and seat. In the place of a sprocket which drove the chain was now a pulley with the fan belt off of a old yazoo lawn mower. A pulley mounted to steering housing with a spring to keep tension on the belt, made the bike look like something out of a science fiction novel.

The day of the test run behind our house had us boys laughing with excitement. My brother had placed the bike on a center block to raise the back tire off the ground. He hooked up the battery terminals and switched the motor on. It stirred to life and the back tire began to sing a high pitched sound. It was so cool to see his invention work, but the real test was about to be the most fun part of my summer and one that I will never forget.

My brother saddled up on his beast of an invention. His bike helmet on along with his leather gloves. He threw his leg over the contraption and held his thumb up for contact. Just like in those old war movies where the guy on the ground spins the propeller of the plane. I gave him the thumbs up also and he pushed off to get the bike up to speed before throwing the switch.

We have lift off I yelled! My brother put his hand down and threw the switch. The beast came to life and the bike hurried off into the distance. I tried to keep up with him, but the bike was much to fast. Standing there out of breath with my hands on my knees, I could see my brother was having a little trouble turning the bike around. He turn it sharply around the corner and disappeared around the block. When he reappeared minutes later he was headed straight for me at a high rate of speed. Tired as I was I had to run for my life to keep ahead of the invention. Darting through the double gate of the back yard I managed to escape under the clothes line to the back fence.

My brother was not so lucky. Even though he had switched the motor off, his speed was to fast to stop and the clothes line caught him under his chin and cut him a flip off of the bike. I thought he was dead and I raced over to help him. I turned him over and he grabbed me and we began to fight. He cursed at me and asked me why I did not help him stop. I told him he should have let me ride it first. I am much shorter than he was and maybe even smarter. "OH YEAH," he said. "Why do you think that?" he said, "Well if you were smarter than me you would have bailed off before the clothes line." We started to laugh and we looked in the direction of his invention. The tires were warped and the battery had come loose and flew into the neighbors back yard. My brother looked at me and made this statement. "Well look at it this way. At least we had some quality time together today."

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