Transvestia

ship of one good friend rather than a gang. I never went in for sports at all, but I wasn't particularly shunned by the other kids. More or less normal, I'd say, except I liked wearing women's clothes! I can't remember pre- ciousely when it started, nor any particular "thing" that happened. I do recall that at various homes I lived in I always managed to spend some time trying on the lady of the house's dresses. It is funny that although I can't remember a lot of the people's names, I can remember the dresses.

Owing to my being a ward of the City, I didn't have the usual teenage life, but was out working on my own shortly after my 14th birthday. For a person with my taste and preferences in clothing, I have lived a very masculine life. My first job was as a guide in a National Park in the Rockies. I took parties on horseback rides (Ichuckled to myself when I read in TVia #19, Susanna's comments about cowboys, I almost fitted it!) From the Park I went to Vancouver, B. C. and joined the Canadian Merchant Marines. This was in late 1944. I spent most of the next few years travelling around the world on va rious freighters.

In 1948, I decided I'd had enough of the sea and took a job as a short-order cook in a Vancouver drive-in.

By this time, I'd had plenty of experience buying clothes and knew all of my own sizes. I've noticed that many TVia readers express embarrasment when buying feminine (isn't that a beautiful word?) things for them- selves. I'm not a pushy person at all, but I decided right from the start that I was buying and they were sell- ing and it was none of their darn business what I bought as long as I paid for it.

It works! I go in and ask for and select a pair of size 10 spikes and no ones made any comment yet, of course what they're thinking is something else again, but they're entitled to their opinions.

I met my wife while working at the drive-in and my life started to reach a completeness. My wife was raised on a farm and had only the vaguest ideas of homosexual- ism and had never hears of transvestism, so she did not

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