By Tom Oncken
Sometime around mid-August, our North Texas member, Tony Robinson, sent the Texas Chapter an open invitation to a meet that was scheduled to occur on September 12th at his home by a local group known as the Granbury Flywheelers. Since Tony could not hold his annual outboard meet in March due to his work schedule, he decided to offer us the opportunity to make up for that meet. As has been customary, Tony said we could come as early as Friday and stay as late as Sunday for that weekend. Adam Finn sent out a blast via email and I mailed a physical letter to those who do not have email addresses or computers. It was a last-minute notice, but we hoped for a nice turnout for Tony on that weekend.
My son, Mike, and I decided that we were going to make a special attempt to attend this meet and his kids wanted to come with us. I recently decided that I need to make an effort to empty a storage shed that is located down the street from my home. I have rented the shed for over 20 years and, due to my advancing age and deteriorating health, I want to save some money and try to reduce the amount of things I have been hoarding for years.
Mike rented a U-Haul trailer and we began to load anything we could stuff inside it. While keeping the stationary engine group in mind, we decided to bring a 50+ year-old Yazoo Master Mower that we had brought home from our deer hunting property because the tires and rubber parts had dry rotted and we were not using the three-wheel, forty-eight inch cut mower at all. It was just deteriorating and gathering dust. So, with a great deal of determination on Friday morning, we filled the 6’ by 9’ twin axle trailer with literally a ton of old parts and the mower. There were some NOS powerheads and a pile of NOS driveshafts that no longer had labels on them. In addition, there were a lot of miscellaneous parts from numerous old outboard motors that had simply accumulated over the years. The downside of loading all of this stuff on Friday was that we were not finished filling up the trailer until about 2:00PM and then we finally got to begin the five hour trip to Tony’s house.
The problem with pulling a trailer like this one was that we had to keep the speed at a minimum and stay in the right lane. Otherwise, it would sway back-and-forth if we went too fast. We made one quick stop on the way for lunch, and another for gas, but we stayed on the road and fought the idiots down the freeway. It took us quite a while to get to Tony’s home in Lipan, but we got there around 7:30PM if I recall correctly. We disconnected the trailer, visited for a while and then took off to check in to our room at a hotel in Weatherford. We left the trailer unlocked so that Tony and his guests could check out the stuff before we came back the next morning We arrived at Tony’s on Saturday at 10:00AM after finding some breakfast and taking a quick stop up the street to let the kids see the special giant rocking chair a few miles away from Lipan. Upon arrival, we noticed that Tony had unloaded our trailer for us and made the Master Mower accessible for up-close viewing. Tony’s step-son from a prior marriage, Jonah Boyd, was at the meet and was very interested in our mower. We asked for $200 and were offered $100, and since our goal was not to take it back home to the shed full of junk, we easily accepted the offer. Jonah spent the remainder of Saturday inflating the front two large tires and finding a temporary tire replacement for the back steering tire in Tony’s tire pile behind his building. Before we left late that afternoon, Jonah had the Master Mower ready to run and actually cut a few swipes in Tony’s back yard. It was neat to see the old mower doing its thing again.
Obviously, our goal for this weekend trip was to come back with an empty trailer and our prices could not be beat. Most parts were stashed in plastic containers in no particular order. We did pick on a few prospective buyers of any part by telling them that the part would only cost a couple of dollars, but they had to take the whole box full of parts with them. They thought we were joking!
By now you are all probably asking why I have not shown more outboard motors and members of our Texas Chapter. Well, other than our trailer of parts, additional outboard motors were few and far between. I wish to thank Morten Lovstad for making the trip to Tony’s meet. Morten was accompanied by his friend, Øystein Bredesen. These gentlemen made the long trip from South Texas and brought a small load of outboards for Tony. Other that those, the only other motors were on some of the boats that members of The Granbury Flywheelers brought with them.
Other known Texas Chapter members included “Coach” Larry Mayo and Ben McCauley. If we also count Tony’s wife Andrea and their two children, Monica and Max, the total from our chapter may be stretched to 14 which includes my grandkids, Emma, Tommy, and Charlie Oncken as junior members. I am sure that the pandemic did more to prevent more members from coming than any other reason. We were blessed with excellent weather although it was a little warmer than we usually have in March, but we still had a great time getting out in the fresh country air and away from the big city.
For lunch on Saturday, Tony took up a collection and then went to a nearby convenience store which makes pizza. The pizza was a special treat and disappeared ever so quickly.
I should also point out that there were a number of interesting pieces of equipment running while we were there. Many of these stationary pieces of machinery are things that I have never seen before. One engine pumped water the entire time it was there. Someone also brought some running models of stationary engines and one other fellow brought a totally restored tractor.
I wish to thank Tony, Andrea, and their family for inviting us into their home once again. Hopefully, they will try to do it again next March if work and the world pandemic will allow. Perhaps with a little more advanced notice, we can get a better turnout for next year.
To view more photos from Tony’s event, follow this link:https://www.texaschapteraomci.com/bws-gallery/last-minute-swap-meet-in-lipan-texas/