In honor of a 61 Johnson sea horse-gctid378461

[carguy]

I inherited a 1962 5.5 seahorse from my step mom's brother. He bought it new and used it on rental boats for fishing for 40 years. It was like the 58 7.5 evinrude I had as a kid in Maine. Today, mounted it to a hand truck, dropped the lower unit in the kitchen garbage can and fired it up for the first time.

The most amazing thing happened. As it came to life, the sounds and smells (and smoke) were like a time machine and suddenly, I'm at my grandparent's home in 1966 and I'm 8 years old, taking the boat out by myself for the first time.

It's really something how memory works. The seahorse will go on the back of the dink this summer and my boys will have the experience of taking it out by themselves. I wonder if 45 years from now, they will remember?

[Guest]

I've had the same experience. We had a 3hp 1963 Evinrude when I was a kid and we used to go to a small isolated island about an hour and half away. Now, every time I smell two stroke exhaust I am taken back to those years. It was a great time.

[draveling]

That's a wonderful feeling, it remind's me of being about 8 or 9 in 1957 and we had an old 3hp sea king from the 1940's, It had a a rope pull start that my Dad would rap around the flywheel and pull. It seemed like a hundred times before it would start, and I remember moving further to the bow, because the rope would whip me in the face or arm, but I didn't care because we were boating and that's all that counts. Man those were the days.

[MidnightSun]

carguy wrote:
I inherited a 1962 5.5 seahorse from my step mom's brother. He bought it new and used it on rental boats for fishing for 40 years. It was like the 58 7.5 evinrude I had as a kid in Maine. Today, mounted it to a hand truck, dropped the lower unit in the kitchen garbage can and fired it up for the first time.

The most amazing thing happened. As it came to life, the sounds and smells (and smoke) were like a time machine and suddenly, I'm at my grandparent's home in 1966 and I'm 8 years old, taking the boat out by myself for the first time.

It's really something how memory works. The seahorse will go on the back of the dink this summer and my boys will have the experience of taking it out by themselves. I wonder if 45 years from now, they will remember?

Wow, what a coincidence. I was also 8 years old when my dad let me take the boat out by myself. The coincidence was that would be 1966. However I was not as fortunate as you and only had a 6hp Seahorse. I did keep a later year 15hp Johnson for nostalgic reasons which I completely stripped and restored. Looks brand new and works very well. Actually used this on my dingy several years back.