Hamilton Reef
07-17-2007, 11:40 AM
Putt- putt- puttering around with outboards brings back memories
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/features-0/1183639826128300.xml&coll=5
07/05/07 By David V. Graham dgraham@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6306
GRAND BLANC TWP. - When Roger White was a kid, growing up poor in Flint in the 1930s and '40s, he remembers how everyone in the neighborhood would gather around when a neighbor started up his outboard motor.
"It was the noise," he said. "There wasn't powered lawn mowers then, and (the outboards) didn't sound anything like a car or truck. You knew it was an outboard just from the sound."
White said his family couldn't afford either a boat or an outboard then, and so even having such an expensive motor in the neighborhood was a rare thing.
Back then, outboard motors typically cost at least $80 new and sometimes as much as $200-plus, a lot of money when people with good jobs were making $5 a day, he said.
Those prices were contained on some old advertising artwork White now collects, along with many of the old motors that were so wonderfully noisy 60 years ago.
White, 72, of Grand Blanc Township has been collecting and restoring old outboards for about six years, ever since a friend and his children ran a hydroplane around a small lake with an antique outboard. White said he liked what he saw and heard that day.
"It was a nostalgia thing," he said. "I used to dream about owing an outboard when I was a kid."
White, a retired telephone equipment salesman and meat cutter, said he also finds it a challenge to find an old outboard and get it running again.
"One of my outboards was found in a junkyard by a friend of mine," he said. "I've got it running good now. It is nice to restore something that is close to being thrown away."
White said he finds most of his outboards at garage sales, and usually pays between $40 and $175 for them. He said he typically spends about 10 hours tuning up the motors or otherwise fixing them. He has eight outboards in his collection now. He gets most of his parts by buying old junker motors for parts.
He rarely sells the motors, preferring to usethem on his 12-foot jonboat for fishing in small local lakes.
He said he nearly always takes a backup motor with him, because it is not unusual for the first motor to quit unexpectedly. White said he isn't discouraged by that trend.
"Usually, I'm working on that motor and I take it to the lake to test it," he said. He admits that he sometimes gets tense while boating because he fears the outboard he is using will quit on him, requiring more work to get it running again.
White is a member of the Antique Outboard Motor club's Great Lakes chapter, which has about 150 members in southeast Michigan and Ontario. About 20 members are from Genesee County, he estimated.
The club is hosting an outboard motor show this weekend in Constantine, a small town on the St. Joseph River about 10 miles south of Sturgis.
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/features-0/1183639826128300.xml&coll=5
07/05/07 By David V. Graham dgraham@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6306
GRAND BLANC TWP. - When Roger White was a kid, growing up poor in Flint in the 1930s and '40s, he remembers how everyone in the neighborhood would gather around when a neighbor started up his outboard motor.
"It was the noise," he said. "There wasn't powered lawn mowers then, and (the outboards) didn't sound anything like a car or truck. You knew it was an outboard just from the sound."
White said his family couldn't afford either a boat or an outboard then, and so even having such an expensive motor in the neighborhood was a rare thing.
Back then, outboard motors typically cost at least $80 new and sometimes as much as $200-plus, a lot of money when people with good jobs were making $5 a day, he said.
Those prices were contained on some old advertising artwork White now collects, along with many of the old motors that were so wonderfully noisy 60 years ago.
White, 72, of Grand Blanc Township has been collecting and restoring old outboards for about six years, ever since a friend and his children ran a hydroplane around a small lake with an antique outboard. White said he liked what he saw and heard that day.
"It was a nostalgia thing," he said. "I used to dream about owing an outboard when I was a kid."
White, a retired telephone equipment salesman and meat cutter, said he also finds it a challenge to find an old outboard and get it running again.
"One of my outboards was found in a junkyard by a friend of mine," he said. "I've got it running good now. It is nice to restore something that is close to being thrown away."
White said he finds most of his outboards at garage sales, and usually pays between $40 and $175 for them. He said he typically spends about 10 hours tuning up the motors or otherwise fixing them. He has eight outboards in his collection now. He gets most of his parts by buying old junker motors for parts.
He rarely sells the motors, preferring to usethem on his 12-foot jonboat for fishing in small local lakes.
He said he nearly always takes a backup motor with him, because it is not unusual for the first motor to quit unexpectedly. White said he isn't discouraged by that trend.
"Usually, I'm working on that motor and I take it to the lake to test it," he said. He admits that he sometimes gets tense while boating because he fears the outboard he is using will quit on him, requiring more work to get it running again.
White is a member of the Antique Outboard Motor club's Great Lakes chapter, which has about 150 members in southeast Michigan and Ontario. About 20 members are from Genesee County, he estimated.
The club is hosting an outboard motor show this weekend in Constantine, a small town on the St. Joseph River about 10 miles south of Sturgis.