Hero of the Day: Air-Cooled Roller Derby

This guy, who’s getting to work on time. How? Motorized roller skates. It’s 1961 in Hartford, Connecticut, and Mike Dreschler, a salesman, is stopped at his local Sunoco for a fill-up. That’s a one-horsepower air-cooled engine on his back; clutch and accelerator in-hand. Sure, it’s an ill-conceived contraption and, yes, the tape wrapped around the main line—presumably, you know, pressurized—isn’t encouraging. But he just looks so goddamn cool, and it’s not just the Wayfarers. The future we were promised: This guy’s living it. Hero.