Old Number 86 is gone now, but when I was nine years old it would outrun any hotrod tricycle on the block. Instead of pedaling it, I turned around on the seat and propelled the thing by pushing its wheels with my feet. At first I struggled frantically to climb the driveway, but soon I learned that by “following through” with my feet I could stay in constant motion. I found this to be an efficient method of riding a tricycle.
One day about three years later I saw someone making his own “dynamite” by putting popsicle sticks together with pressure. When the bomb was dropped, the sticks would fly. I tried this and then began to invent different types of bombs. I made one with 302 sticks one day. It was twenty-nine feet long and four inches wide, and when I pulled out the end stick a chain-reaction resulted, throwing sticks all over the yard. It took several minutes to clean up the MESS.