RANSVESTIA

was just taking too much time. That put it back on me. I had the choice then of just discontinuing it or figuring out some way whereby I could keep it going though on a lesser scale since I just couldn't possibly devote the time Fran had contributed on top of the needs of Chevalier Pubs and many other personal activities.

Having just returned from Europe and seen how well our affiliated societies in Denmark, Sweden and particularly England were doing, it would have just been humiliating to have the parent organization in a big country like the U.S. die off. So I conceived the idea of a Directory of members so that they could communicate with each other and still have a sense of security. This also enabled me to manage it alone though I couldn't do all the personal contacting and arranging that Fran had done.

In 1972 I gave talks to the American Library Association conven- tion in Las Vegas, to the Washington University Department of Psychiatry in St. Louis, and took part in a seminar at the Institute for Sex Research in Bloomington, Indiana, trying to spread more in- formation about us where it would do the most good. Naturally there were a few radio and TV shows thrown in.

1973 was an eventful year as you will probably remember. It was eventful for me in several ways. I had gotten interested in radio con- trolled gliders from seeing a bunch of them being flown near San Diego one weekend. So I bought one second-hand and started to learn to fly it. In the process of looking for one I had met a fellow who told me about flying large gliders and I decided that I would look into that since the brother of a girl friend had just gotten a brand new type in from Czechoslovakia. So one day I was out at Hemet about 80 miles east of L.A. at the glider field looking for her but found that her brother was there. I introduced myself and after sitting around in the shade awhile he said, "Well, guess I'll take a flight, want to come along, Virginia?"

Since, on such short notice, I couldn't think of any reasons why I should say no, I said yes and we went out and got into his new glider, got towed up several thousand feet, disconnected and were on our own like a big bird. We came down and he asked if I wanted to go again to which I enthusiastically replied yes and we did. Those two flights were enough, I was hooked. I then came out and began to

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