Many years ago, in the early spring of '55 as I recall, I watched as eight Harleys were emptied of their entrails and sacrificed to one man's dream. My motorcycle buddy Mac and I watched as each motor was split apart and the flywheel assemblies with rods and pistons were all discarded where they fell, littering the sandy soil like some robot's oily guts.

As if in full retreat from reason and sanity, Gus, a Greek restaurant owner, had become obsessed with living the free life of a traveling carnival side show operator. His gimmick was to be an easily knocked down and transported kids ride, but one with a difference. Rather than little race cars, ponies, or boats, his was to feature eight full size motorcycles! Real, actual, nice-looking Harleys Gus had bought, most from the local H-D Dealer, whose back room was always near bulging over with trade-ins, and the rest bought off the street. All runners, and all destined to be gutted and mounted to flooring, circular in shape, and sectioned so as to be knocked down for loading and transport. In the center of the flooring rose a steel pipe which sprouted eight smaller pipes. (The contraption looked like a monstrous beach umbrella!) From the outer end of each of these pipes, a strut descended and mounted to each of the eight bikes at a point just behind the saddle. The device thus both held the motorcycles upright and guided them. The front forks were locked up in order to insure that they rolled in a constant diameter circle around the wooden floor.

And that was about it, except, you guessed it, for the motive force necessary to drive these impotent big twin Harleys. The answer was relatively simple: one bike had its entire motor and gearbox removed and in its place a heavy duty 6 volt electrical motor now drove the rear wheel through the original drive chain and sprocket, a small sprocket now fitted to the motor shaft. The hired hand sat on a plywood box near this "driver" machine, a large truck battery beneath his chair, hidden from view. A simple knife switch affixed to this enclosure provided some primitive control over the rotation and a short charging cable lay ready for connection to a rapid charger that was strapped on a handtruck near by. A bit of bright paint and balloons would then be added to lend the gay appearance needed to calm parents while their kids begged for a ride.

Poor, tired and broken, Gus fought this strange life for nearly three seasons, rarely breaking even, the winter too cold and tight, always hoping for that "good" summer ahead. Years later I learned that his biker's carnival ended up abandoned in woods near the Richmond, Virginia Fairgrounds, apparently its final show.