More than speedy transportation, a Doodlebug meant independence and the little red scooters delivered it.

“In those years, if you were a teenager, you wanted a Doodlebug. Even girls rode them,” Wells recalled.

Two years later, Wells got his driver’s license and with it his father’s 1937 Nash Lafayette.

“It was the first car in town with a metallic paint job,” Wells said, “and I’ll never forget that color: Hawaiian bronze metallic.”

His little red scooter was put away and eventually sold.

In 1999, Wells attended his first Doodlebug Reunion and the old, familiar feelings of freedom and exhilaration he’d known riding his first bug 50 years earlier came roaring back. Before he left the fairgrounds that day, he’d bought a reconditioned Doodlebug and asked organizer Vern Ratcliff if there was anything he could do to help out at the reunion.

There was lots to be done at the Doodlebug Reunion.

For the next 20 years, Wells and his wife Carol shared the duties of secretary and treasurer of the Doodlebug Club of America, headquartered in Webster City.

“Carol did all the detailed treasurer’s work and brought organization to every aspect of the reunion,” Jerry Wells said.

People attend the reunion for many reasons. Becky Dockum, for one, attended the 2023 reunion to assist her brother, a long-time Doodlebug enthusiast, in selling several of his scooters.

Carol Wells, who tries to meet every attendee and make sure they’re having a good time, struck up a conversation with Dockum, in the process mentioning Jerry was working on a manuscript for a book about Doodlebugs. Dockum’s business is to help authors self-publish their books. She said she’d like to see Jerry’s manuscript.

“Jerry had written a beautiful story, and I only cleaned it up a little bit,” Dockum said in a recent phone interview. “It was such a pleasure working with Jerry and Carol. They’re kind, forgiving people.”

Jerry Wells was immediately at ease working with Dockum.

“I knew right away she was the person who could help me get the book published.”

The result is “Davy the Magic Doodlebug,” a 30-page soft cover book that’s not easy to classify.

Dockum says it isn’t just a children’s book.

“It’s a story a young child can understand as an adult reads it to them, but also a story an adult can read and relate to their own childhood.”

As the story opens, we meet 11-year-old Billy, who spies “a rusty old piece of metal almost hidden in a large clump of grass” while climbing a tree. It turns out to be an abandoned motor scooter in rugged, but salvageable condition.

Jerry Wells has heard a number of stories of how real-life Doodlebugs were rescued and restored from what many would consider a pile of junk.

In the book, Billy learns on the internet that his scooter is a Doodlebug, made by Beam Manufacturing Co., of Webster City. Between 1946 and 1948, the company made 40,000 of the tiny red scooters. He names his scooter Davy, the Magic Doodlebug.

At that moment, Davy works a bit of magic of his own, becoming the world’s only talking Doodlebug, thanking Billy for rescuing him, and giving him that name.

After an exciting first ride, Billy’s little sister, Emily, asks if she could take a turn. She’s discouraged by Billy’s big-brother answer: “Girls don’t know how to ride something like this. Besides, you’re only nine years old and way too young to do something so dangerous.”

The book is laid out so each page of copy, printed in a large font size, and a colored illustration done by Dockum in water color pencil are across from each other. Although Dockum claims she isn’t a professional illustrator, the story can easily be understood just by looking at the illustrations in sequence.

Near the book’s end, Davy hopes Billy will feel “forever young” whenever he rides.

It may be the same feeling those Webster City teenagers felt when they first stepped aboard their own “bugs” back in the early 1950s.

In a final bit of advice, Davy also tells Billy: “By the way, your little sister Emily should be allowed to ride, after all, girls do ride Doodlebugs.”

In the last drawing in the book, a very happy Emily is going for a ride with Davy. The smile on her face is all the proof that Doodlebugs, the storied little red scooters from Webster City, truly are magic.

Copies of the book will be sold for $15 each at the Doodlebug Reunion, at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds Sept. 10-13. Admission is free.

For those wishing to buy the book, but who are unable to attend the Doodlebug Reunion, contact Jerry Wells at 515-832-9194.