A battered but still standing gentleman named Oscar Rolland Markel from Ashland, OH, posing with his beloved Harley-Davidson sidecar rig which is just as equally mangled. Oscar was a truck driver, a policeman, and a contractor in the Ashland area, he even built a roller coaster at the Chippewa Lake Amusement Park and fancied himself an aspiring Wall of Death daredevil. According to the family history site that this photo was found on, Oscar would make periodic trips up to visit one of his brothers who lived on 70 miles north on Lake Erie. There he would load up on as much fish as he could fit into the cooler that he kept in his sidecar. As he returned home to Ashland he would then sell his fresh catch along the way, filling his tanks and pockets as he motored along. There is no mention of the circumstance around his wreck which left the two in such a poor state, but hopefully when the spill occurred it was just a load of dead fish in the sidecar and not his lovely wife Bernice.

 

Here is the family's website if you would like to learn more about Oscar and his life. FryFamilyAshland.com

 

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