HISTORY
Waid was born and raised in San Diego and got his first scooter
(a 1947 Cushman two-speed) at the tender age of 14½ . He got into
collecting scooters in 1984 when his son, Matt, purchased an Allstate
and began restoring it himself. During the restoration, a friend
(to whom Waid had sold five collector cars) called to see what kind of
cars Waid liked at the time. When he heard they were restoring a Vespa,
the friend offered to give Waid the remainder of a scooter shop that
had closed in 1967. The loot from the shop included three scooters: two
Vespa 150s and a GS 160 MK1 (glovebox on the rear), as well as nine
engines and many boxes of space parts. THE SCOOTER DADDY
During 1985-86, as Waid's GS was being built, he hauled Matt's bike
to out-of-town rallies and followed the rides in his truck to pick up
any broken-down bikes. He enjoyed the rides in his truck to pick up any
broken-down bikes. He enjoyed the rides vicariously and saw to it that
no one was left behind. Even after his bike was finished, he often
followed the rallies if no one else had a truck. STORY BY CASEY EARLS |
Soon, he was feeding
and housing scooterists on a short-term basis and in 1990,
Jennifer Pricket gave him a T-shirt with iron-on letters that read,
"Scooter Daddy." The letters eventually fell off, but the
name stuck, and his fame as the savior of scooterists has been
growing ever since. The business cards Waid uses in his retirement read "
Don't leave your scoot on the street, I'll haul it home free," and he
really means it. People call him any time and he'll come out and help.
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Waid says that only two scooterists have
called three times or more, and of those two, one has called after 2:00 AM. The
most common problem is a fouled spark plug, so he always carries a variety of spares.
He's only said "no" once. He was in bed, asleep, and a girl
called to say she had a flat tire and that if he didn't get out of bed and drive
10 miles to pick her up, she'd have to push her bike two blocks to home. He told
her to push it. The next morning he picked up her bike and bought a spare wheel, tire,
and two tubes. They sanded and repainted her three wheels, remounted her tires, adjusted
all her cables, and pounded out all the dents in her cowls and painted them satin black.
She was back on the road, looking and running better than ever.
RIDE OF A LIFETIME
The ultimate show of support came when Waid offered to follow the
Ride of a Lifetime, six scooterists who'd
decided to drive from their hometown of San Francisco to Pontedera, Italy, for the fiftieth
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