The Neighborhood's First Chopper

My brother Roger has always been mechanically inclined. As a very young child he decided to take his tricycle apart one day. Mom admonished him and told him to put it back together. He did, and then he told her he was going to be a "canic" just like dad. Well, he did indeed become a mechanic, and a darn good one.

Roger always did enjoy tinkering with things. When we were growing up he would build things like the battery charger he constructed using an old washing machine motor and a generator from a junked car. It worked like a charm. He worked on lawnmowers, go-carts, cars - anything with a motor or mechanical parts. Although I didn't fully understand the significance of the things he was able to do back then, I did realize that Roger had a gift that the other kids I knew didn't have.

Today's picture is one that has been in our family for some 40 years. It shows Roger at around age 10 posing with his latest creation - a "chopped" bicycle. He welded a pair of metal table legs to the front fork of his bike to extend them by about 3 feet. The result was our neighborhood's very first "chopper". He was the envy of the rest of the neighborhood kids as he coolly rode up and down the road on that bike.

Roger still tinkers with things today...sometimes for fun and often just as a favor to someone. He still has that gift and I hope he never stops being a "canic".

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