Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos #essentialsofrec #recovery #Lois #AA

By Lois Wilson

PART VI

Jacksonville, Fla.

Wed., Feb. 3, 1926

At the inn in Fitzgerald two girls who had just driven up from Palm Beach through Waycross said the road was practically impassable, that on the way up, they had spent $150 on repairs to their Ford. About twenty miles along what we hope to be a better route, passing through a colored section, someone yelled, “Look behind,” and when we saw the stand dragging, the tent hanging by a thread, and the blankets gone, a dismal pall settled on us! Our funds were low, seven army blankets would cost a pretty penny to replace, the nights would be unbearable without them and there seemed little hope of finding them.

However, we retraced our steps, asking at every cabin, sopping every car, and spreading the rumor that there would be a reward if the blankets were delivered to Clark’s Garage in Ocilla. At this garage where we last saw the blankets on the machine, we left our name and address and then despondently resumed our journey. About halfway to where we had noted our loss, spying a cabin off the road, Bill had an immediate hunch that we would find the blankets there. Upon inquiring, the negros had at first “seen nothing’.”

Persisting, he heard a couple of old folks in a rear room mentioning a large bundle, and after repeated questioning one of them finally said she had seen “two low-down niggers” stop their car to pick up something in the road, and she “reckoned they was agoin’ to meeting’.” The half-mile trail to the meeting house was so rough Bill had to hike in. While the hallelujahing enchanted him with its rhythm and harmony, he searched each of the dozen or so parked jalopies, and in the very last one found the blankets. My, but we were thankful!

Soon we came to another bad spot in the road where four mired cars were helping each other push through. They hung around to see if we needed aid too--but we fooled them. Carefully picking his route, when Bill gave the engine the gas, how the dirt did fly, to the admiration of the onlookers. Sometimes the old boat does do us proud.

After spending the night in the little town of Nashville, Georgia, we found mail waiting for us at Valdosta, just before crossing into Florida. Hardly believing we were in the famous state at last. We expected to have at least decent roads; instead we bumped over washboard, crawling in low gear for nearly twenty miles. Not only the monotony of mile after endless mile of poor road, through tall pine swamps, depressed us, but the fact that this type of terrain was staked out for building lots.

However, the picturesque and well-equipped tourist camp at White Springs on the Swanee River was a pleasant antidote, and the other campers congenial. The gray spanish moss draping the pines lends mystery to the woods. Being an air-plant it hangs on all kinds of trees, on telegraph wires and fence rails, but is said to kill the fruit trees.

Bill was determined to find what made the machine run so inconsistently, so it was late the next day before we got underway. The time and energy spent on the motorcycle is tremendous. While we were eating a snack beside the road an old black hog tried to join the party. We have not seen a white pig since leaving the north; those here are either brown, black or spotted black and tan, like the Hottentot man in the limerick.

Animals appear in the strangest places here, cows, hogs and goats running wild through woods and swamps. On the road you never know when a so-called domestic animal will pop out in front of you. The wretched, sorry-looking cows are used for meat, not milk.

A fine cement road leads into Jacksonville, but the tourist camp is miserable, crowded with all sorts of harem-scarem people so that nothing left outside is safe. Many people live here from week to week, some with jobs, but most of them, having no money, can neither go home nor travel south, and like Mr. Micawber, are waiting for something to turn up.

A little girl died in camp and, as the family was very poor, other tourists chipped in for her burial. One man’s tent burned down and the campers joined forces to buy him a better one than he had before. Much kindness is here, too.

A young fellow from New Jersey, who in October rode down in his Indian motorcycle with a dog in the sidecar, said his machine was so shattered that he sold it for $20, and has lived on the money ever since. Although a carpenter, he has no tools so he can’t get a job, and is trying to scrape up a stake somehow, to return to the north. Our Harley-Davidson has not shaken apart, but it definitely needs repair. Our young friend offered to fix it, and Bill let him try--but to no avail.



Orlando, Fla.

Sun., Feb. 7, 1926

There is an old pavement with many holes between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, and so narrow that, when passing, one car has to go off into the rough. We would have liked to have had more time to snoop around enchanting St. Augustine, the oldest city in America. The view at sunset from one of the turrets of the old fort with its Spanish gates, guns and cannon was stunning. At the Fountain of Youth we paid 50¢ for a draught of the famous water and to hear the guide’s spiel about Ponce de Leon and De Soto and the ancient chapel built out of coquina rock--shell ground and pressed by the action of waves and time. A daft reformer, the president of the society which collected the fee, gave us a diatribe against white slavery.

Although we had sworn to avoid tourist camps after Jacksonville, we were not able to resist the VERMONT Tourist. It turned out to be the best yet--running water, clean toilets, cement washtubs, cooking ranges under cover, and tiny bungalows to rent, for those who do not have a tent. Our motorcycle, N.Y. license and our pile of duffle are a great curiosity wherever we go. People are surprised at how much the machine can carry.

The next day the old bike made such a poor start that Bill gave her one more overhaul. Experimenting, he replaced the new Washington spark plugs with supposedly worn-out ones, when, lo and behold, she ran like a bird.

After crossing the toll bridge to Ormond Beach, I let her out all the way, and we whizzed along on the magnificent hard sand until suddenly losing power, she stopped dead. Again disappointed in the old bus, I looked down and saw the carburetor hanging loose. We had nearly lost it!

Orlando’s twenty-nine lakes make it a charming residential city, but the folks on the downtown streets are a motley crew-sharpers, aristocrats, tough looking women, get-rich-quickies, and just plain people.

We arrived just at supper time at the home of Percy and Dora, Dr. Strobel’s son and his wife, who are expecting us to stay a few days. Their two cunning boys are most well behaved, Percy being so strict they don’t dare be otherwise.

Saturday our hosts took us and the children for a picnic on Cocoa Beach. Driving about sixty miles through endless swamps of cypress, oak and pine, many kinds of heron fished the black waters; mud turtles basked in the sun; and the blue sky and gray moss set off the delicious new red of the maples. While we ate lunch on the beach, sandpipers gingerly picked their way along the water’s edge, and pelicans plummeted for fish offshore.

Florida seems either intensely cultivated or wasteland. The soil in the swamps, however, is said to be rich, so that to grow a fine truck garden it would only be necessary to cut down the trees, dig out the stumps, drain, plow, fertilize, and sow the seeds. No trouble? The profit from the resulting fine vegetables is said to be well worth it. But what about the birds, mud turtles and small animals? Where do they go?

Much of the Florida peninsula has a coral base, and there are strange tales that: water will bubble up anywhere a twenty-foot hole is dug; but by digging three hundred fee down, a swamp can be drained. Most confusing?

Tomorrow we hit the road again, after a most pleasant visit with the Strobels.



Near Winter Haven, Fla.

Feb. 9, 1926

Yesterday near Haines City, we had four blowouts, the first of our experience. Some time ago, realizing we needed new tires, Bill wired Frank for money, which we received in Orlando, but being anxious to reach Fort Myers where we plan to visit Bill’s mother and her husband, Dr. Strobel, on their houseboat, we took a chance on the old ones--and lost.

Thinking a broken spoke had pierced the tube, Bill patched it, but it soon blew out again. Once more he patched it and once more it blew, all on the back wheel, the hardest to handle because the wheel itself has to be removed and both mudguard and brake loosened.

Although I had walked about a mile to buy patches, patches wouldn’t do, so we had to put on the spare, to get at which all the luggage on the rear end had to be removed, then put back again. A man in a Ford stopped to help. We went only a short distance before wham, we could hardly believe the spare blew out! A new tire was a necessity.

The very beautiful sunset brightened but did not shorten my two and a half mile hike into Winter Haven. Trudging from garage to garage I could find no suitable tires, but I did spy a parked motorcycle with a delivery box in place of a sidecar. A little girl told me the driver was downtown, and I would recognize him immediately because of his red sweater and fat cheeks. Sure enough, I did, and he drove me, riding on top of the delivery box, to still another garage, where again there was no success. A cop, however, in the police station opposite, gave me an old smaller tire with a slow leak, insisting it could be stretched to fit, and volunteered to put it on. So I was officially escorted in a police car back to Bill, who, by the way, had been terribly worried as it was pitch dark and I had been gone more than two and a half hours, during which time he had set up the tent and fixed camp.

Of course the cop’s tire would not fit, but the helpful man in the Ford, after an unsuccessful search for me in town, did learn where two tires could be bought, the cop driving Bill to purchase them and back. People are certainly kind everywhere we go.



Now, after a surprisingly restful night beside the road, we are nearly ready to start--but those old tires cost us a full twenty-four hours. Although still one hundred and twenty miles north of Fort Myers, we hope to reach there today.