RANSVESTIA

have met many Mexicans like him and am always impressed with them. After he filled the truck and brought the credit slip back for me to sign he asked me if I was driving that big thing all by myself. I told him that I was and asked him if he would like to see the inside. Did he ever! After looking it over very carefully he again commented about me driving it all by myself. I told him that my husband had liberated me.

I pulled into Laredo about ten at night and stopped about a block or two from the trailer park and with much regret I took off my makeup and my dress. I have stayed at the park so many times that the owner calls me by my first name. I get very depressed after I have been dressed for any period of time and then have to change back.

I stayed in Laredo for eight days and at least twenty people called me "Miss," "Lady” or “Ma'am" while I was dressed as a man! In fact, I was called "Miss" while I had my motorcycle helmet on!

I had to rent a big trailer for the return trip so I thought I had better not press my luck and dress on the way back. I was still called "Ma'am" quite frequently though. Since my business had to be transacted as a man and I then had to get on home with the stock there were no further femme adventures to report but the trip down was great fun.

Editor's note: Interestingly enough I too have a motor home of the same size and arrangements (except for the tub bath) that Diana describes. I take it all over the mountains of So. Calif. on weekends. The reason I mention it here as a foot note is to comment on what Diana has said about men commenting on a woman driving a 26 or 28 foot rig. If noth- ing else had ever proven to me the second class status that men automat- ically place women it is has been this kind of comment. Now it is agreed that not too many women do drive coaches but their remarks and ex- pressions indicate their surprise that a woman can drive one. In actuality they are as easy to drive as a car once you get used to the additional length, width and height and know where your "edges" are. On the highway you sit considerably above the roofs of cars and can see what's going on some distance down the highway. It doesn't require any more strength than driving the family car, just a little special experience. However men make the implicit assumption that women are both weak, stupid and incapable of doing a lot of things that they can do. Thus their amazement when they find some women disproving their assumptions. Really, it doesn't do much for one's respect for men to see them from this side of the street. True, Diana and I have Ron and Charles in the back of our head with their experience, mechanical knowledge, etc., but the observers don't know that and just expect all women to be incapable in such matters. I presume you have head of “women drivers”. Think over the chauvenistic implications of the expression next time you feel inclined to use it.