Mystery Scooter

North of Redwood Drive is the Trees of Mystery. Mom worked there for a number of years, in both the gift shop and in the ticket booth at the entrance of the trail.

At the time my best friend was Diana Webster. Her mom was married to Bill Thompson, the son of Trees owner, Mary Lee Thompson.

I used to venture up the highway to Diana’s house so we could play together.

She and I used to ride horse in the clearing jus’ south of the Blue Ox Café, which was next to the Trees Motel. Other times we ran around the woods jus’ being kids.

One day I went over to her house and discovered that she and her sister Sharon had a new toy; a light blue mini-scooter. They were racing it along the road from their home to the end of the street and around the caretaker’s house and back to their house.

They let me have a turn at it, even though I had never ridden one in my entire life. It kept it at a slow pace the first few times as I was worried I’d crash or something as I made the corners.

Soon we were each taking turns zooming down the road and back again. However I was still going the slowest as I was still unsure of myself.

That’s when Diana called me a sissy for “putt-putting” around the corners like I did. I couldn’t let her get away with that.

So my next turn, I revved up the scooter and took off. I flew down the road for all that little bike would go.

As I came into the first corner, I realized I was traveling way too fast. So I cut back on the power and tried to brake.

It wasn’t enough as the rear wheel hit the edge of the asphalt and dropped into the grass edge of the caretaker’s yard. The shift in the back-end of the scooter caused me to juice the gas and I took off straight, completely missing the second corner.

Next thing I know, I was flying through the bushes and tumbling down the hill, over the flowers that spelled out the first “s” in Trees of Mystery. Behind me was the scooter.

Both the scooter and I landed in heap at the bottom of the hill near the bumper of a car. And while we were both okay, Mrs. Thompson forbid me from riding the scooter any more as she was afraid I get myself killed.