I do not want to finish this record of my Grass Root Memories without a brief account of an event early in my youth that sort of set the direction of my life. This event became a project which I undertook to try to help ease the debt load from the backs of my parents.

I refer to an article I read in the National Geographic Magazine, sometime in the early twenties. My Brother Earl had been given a gift subscription to this magazine by an Aunt. This article told about the influence of the farm tractor on farm life as well as other aspects of society.

Of course, it was necessary to at least obtain a patent from the Patent Office in Ottawa before attempting to negotiate with any firm. So, I wrote the Patent Office for information on how to apply for this document. Having received this information, I began preparing the necessary papers and drawings. The only legal help I really needed was the signature of a lawyer. For the payment of a few dollars, I got the family lawyer's signature, as well as the services of his stenographer to do the necessary typing.

Well, with a total investment of less than one hundred dollars, I was able to apply for and obtain in a relatively short time, a Canadian patent. Patent No. 261912 was issued to me, a teen-ager! What a happy occasion when the mailman delivered via registered mail to our rural route mail box this valuable document. What a wonderful seventeenth birthday gift.

The next step was to obtain an American Patent. I was told that a Canadian patent alone was not worth very much. A new sot of drawings had to be made and a complete new set of papers. Well, I applied to the Patent Office in Washington with all these necessary papers and application fee. The result was, because of several conflicting American patents, my application would be rejected. Without an American patent, the Canadian patent I had dreamed about would be of little worth.

Of course, I was disappointed. But all was not lost. Philosophically I swallowed my disappointment, and resumed my education in Machine design by correspondence, concurrently with secondary school.

I did learn much from this experience. I did obtain a great satisfaction from having accomplished what I did as a mere youth. This was proof that I could invent and create. I would carry on, and some day, some way, I would succeed at something creative for society.

Well, Pa saw to it that the local public should know about his son's accomplishment, and had a short but somewhat exaggerated news release for The Age Dispatch, our local weekly in Strathroy. This gave me a bit of local fame which raised my ego a bit and gave me a bit of enjoyment.

I finished the term at the L.C.S. and carried on with the correspondence lessons in machine design drafting. Early in nineteen twenty-nine, I was fortunately given a chance of a position in drafting at a company in Newmarket, which I gladly accepted.