Popular Science Monthly -
July 1955 p202
The Life and Times of Gus
Wilson
Scan of original article (pdf format)
(continued from page 88)
stating
that both Gus and Joe were real men, running a garage in a small town near
New York City. Their names were changed, it was reported, as a
condition of detailing their experiences. In one of their articles,
appearing in 1930. Gus's prepublication
history was pushed even farther back:
"Gus
Wilson grew up with the automobile industry. When Duryea was experimenting
with his first gasoline buggy, Gus Wilson was then a young man, was
investigating and incidentally overhauling one of those funny little steam
vehicles that had to stop at every horse trough. ...When the first electric
hansom cab hummed and groaned its snail like course over the streets, Gus
was adding water to the batteries, sandpapering the commutator and otherwise
mothering these clumsy vehicles. His wrist is still stiff because the
huge one-cylinder engine of a
Northern runabout kicked back and broke several bones..."
Based
on the Duryea clue, simple arithmetic would make the old boy around 82 years
old now. Since this is clearly improbable, research has been conducted
into dusty files and elderly memories. The answer: there was indeed a
prototype Gus long ago. For those who ask about him now, the only fitting
reply is, "What do you want, chimes?"
old
friends.
Around the garage, from the Thirties on, there gathered a few regulars once
described by Martin Bunn as the "Model Garage Debating Society." There
was Doc Marvin, general practitioner and boon companion; Ezra Zacharias, the
rural mail carrier; Silas Barnstable, a magnificent tightwad; and old Doc
Hockenjoss, a fragrant and whimsical veterinarian. State Trooper Jerry
Corcoran showed up in 1939 and aided by Gus's frequent help in nabbing
malefactors won his sergeant's stripes in 1950. Harry Godfrey was
grease monkey for some years, but he enlisted a few months before Pearl,
just as Gus had brought...(continued
on page 204)
