part-time woman and I decided that I should therefore work to prepare myself for that day of opportunity.

Using books on charm I slowly struggled toward that goal. And struggle it was. Learning the walk, the talk, the mannerisms of a woman is hard work. It takes learning as an actor learns, and practice, practice, practice. I would sit in front of the mirror, tense from the pressure of insufficient time, the clothes rumpled from a month's storage, no make-up, and try to get into the right mood. Charm train- ing is considerably more difficult when done alone in solitude like this than when taught and demonstrated by an instructor.

Two years after our first child, our second daughter was born. I carefully avoided any contact with either infant when dressed to avoid any hint of my femininity. On a few occasions when one of the infants awoke I hurriedly put on my masculine bathrobe over my dress to avoid detection when I went to their darkened bedroom. After the oldest daughter was three I adjusted my clandestine activities to such times as both infants were out with my wife. Despite all the obstacles and limitations in this home-grown monthly charm course I could detect progress and was encouraged. Then occasionally when my wife and daughters went out of town for a few days to visit relatives, I would put together all I had learned and make believe I was a real woman preparing to go out in public.

I had another idea that helped brighten my years of secret solitary dressing. As a young child I had often dreamed of magically turning into a girl and growing up to be a nurse, a lady musician, a lady pilot like Amelia Earhart, to be married in a beautiful wedding gown, to be pregnant and bear a beautiful baby, and on and on. These fantasies. stayed with me through the years and many times at night when the desire to dress gnawed within me I would lull myself to sleep replaying these secret delights in the sparkling theater of my mind. Now with the freedom to dress, even as limited as it was, I could begin to flesh out these dreams. I played our spinet in my cheap house dress . . . and made believe I was in a dinner gown playing at the restaurant, the customers coming by with their song requests. I wore a nurse's uniform as I busied myself around the house . . . on duty at the hospital. Wear- ing home-made padding under maternity clothes I lived an occasional hour as a young mother-to-be.

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