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Sub-consciously I may have started out to prove that tom-boys have more fun. I came very close to fractures and contusions and littered the area with flying parts——not of me but [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] machines, as I determinedly tried to learn trick bicycle riding. It wasn't easy but I made it. I also made it to an ice skating championship. In retrospect had I been boxed within the narrow limits of conformation, as practiced in those simple times, my resentment and rebellion would have given me pioneer status as a juvenile delinquent. I felt that there was always some interesting new stunt to learn, some new challange for my wits, skills and interests. Usually to the neighborhood consternation, I found it.

My earliest venture into hero-worship had the unforgettable name of Percy Mc Gargle. He was a man, to me, ;whose thinking had scope and imagination. He was not afraid of the first step into adventure. Percy was one of the first men to drive an automobile across the United States. His footnote in courage was an epic journey in an early Oldsmobile that any museum today would give its' [[sic]] Neolithic Man to own....It was equipped with a carriage seet [[sic]] and operated with a steering handle. It probably whirled through space at a top speed of maybe Twenty-Five miles an hour. Percy was the boy-friend of the beautiful young thing next door. I am sure that I, along with the other neighborhood kids, greatly impeded the pace of their romance. With Percy's arrival came all his wide-eyed admiring syncophants [[sic]], thirsting for every word of his great adventure and probing and prying with endless questions. Exposure to this Machine-Age Paragon infected me with the automobile virus. An automobile moved to the top of my "GOTTA HAVE IT LIST".