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I developed sudden immunity to advice.  I stubbornly refused to believe that when the plane tipped it would slide to the ground.  I held to this belief as if it were a quote from Holy Writ and engraved on tablets of stone.  I made up my mind that next time I went up, I'd bank the plane and prove to all beyond [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] question that skidding was better, faster, and easier than using the ailerons.  Somewhere it is written "Pride goeth before a fall."  It should be amended to "A stubborn woman is beyond reason."  I took off, flew beyond the lake edge and banked, I banked again to complete my turn .... alas I banked too much!  Down slid the plane to the water.  The two left wings crumpled.  Glenn Curtiss, galvanized into action by my fall, appeared at the shoreline, furiously white-faced and angry.  He called, "Blanche!  Blanche!  Are you hurt?"  I was half-crying in fear and exasperation at my folly, and a sickening pain stabbed at my left ankle.  Still seated in the plane I called back,
"No, of course I'm not hurt.  I just broke my damned ankle!"

The accident and my barroom language became the sensation of the village gossip grapevine.  In those simple times for a woman to publicly use profanity was unthinkable.  Mrs. Curtiss was quite prim and proper.  Her house guest screaming cuss words on Keuka Lake was shameful.  I hobbled into the living-room for the well deserved reprimand I knew was coming.  Lena Curtiss looked me directly in the eye, "Blanche, I know your family background and your education.  So far your department as our guest has been quite beyond reproach.  Today's behavoir and shocking language was a great disappointment to me.  It was, and still is, difficult for me to believe that you'd lower yourself to the gutter level and mouth words one might expect only from the [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] poorly educated lower classes.  It was an exhibition I shall remember with shame for some time to come."