Another thing, this area where we got our one half block was named the Davis Addition and was named after George Davis that lived out in that area having been his farm land I guess.  I guess that it was in 1914 that I got my violin.  I remember I organized what they called the Larkin Club, in other words, selling things to the neighbors and got a violin as a premium, I believe that was the way it was.  Then also in 1914, I got a violin correspondence course from the Northwestern school of music in Milwaukee.  I had forgotten all about this but I found it in some old things of mine.  I was thinking I got all my violin teaching from Virgie but I didn't get it all from her.

 

One thing I thought of, in the old days before I got my bicycle, roller skates were the thing.  We had a sidewalk in front of the house on 6th street which helped but I really got my best roller skating experience on east Broadway where there was about 2 miles of paving stretching from the square to Philips University.  Skating from one end of that street to the other was quite fun.  The pavement was a little rough but it was really fine to have it to skate on.  Of course the cars didn't run very fast then and there weren't very many to worry about.  I remember one time that I learned a little lesson.  I thought well, I'll just hitch a ride behind one of these trucks going by.  I got up real fast speed as it past me and grabbed on to the tail end.  It threw me down and I skidded about 15 Ft.  It wore a hole through all my clothes.  It was quite an experience.  I never did that again. Speaking of spills that way, reminds me of the motorcycle.  I kept the motorcycle until I had about 4 good spills on it.  I can remember one of them that was probably easiest on me.  But it was the meanest one as far as that is concerned.  I turned left off of a paved road onto a muddy dirt road.  When I got on the mud, the motorcycle skidded and I fell on my belly, wearing my best suit.  It just about ruined it.  Boy did it plaster it full of mud.  It was a mess.  Another time I remember going across a rail road crossing with several tracks and a bug hit me in the eye and caused me to turn the wheel a little.  That caused it to get caught in the track and threw me on the rail road track.  I remember skidding and turning over in the sand.  I can remember there were 4 good spills that I had on the motorcycle before I decided it wasn't really the thing I should have.  I got rid of it.

 

One way of starting the motorcycle was by pushing the peddle on the side but the best way to get it started was to push the motorcycle.  The approach was to hold the handle bars and run and then jump on it when it started.  One time I started it and the gas was on too much and it accelerated too fast and I was unable to turn the gas off before being dragged about 1/2 block.