2 A.M
A month later , in January , 1909 , aged twenty-three and a half , Carl was steaming out of El Paso for California , with one thousand dollars in savings , a beautiful new Stetson hat , and an ambition to build up a motor business in San Francisco . As the desert sky swam with orange light and a white-browed woman in the seat behind him hummed Musetta 's song from `` La Bohème '' he was homesick for the outlanders , whom he was deserting that he might stick for twenty years in one street and grub out a hundred thousand dollars . On a grassy side-street of Oakland , California , was `` Jones & Ericson 's Garage : Gasoline and Repairs : Motor Cycles and Bicycles for Rent : Oakland Agents for Bristow Magnetos . '' It was perhaps the cleverest garage in Oakland and Berkeley for the quick repairing of motor-cycles ; and newly wed owners of family runabouts swore that Carl Ericson could make a carburetor out of a tomato-can , and even be agreeable when called on for repairs at 2 A.M. . He had doubled old Jones 's business during the nine months -- February to November , 1909 -- that they had been associated . Carl believed that he thought of nothing but work and the restaurants and theaters of civilization . No more rolling for him until he had gathered moss !