Mr. Gar Wood was a...
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Mr. Gar Wood was a genius inventor with many talents and racing speed boats was one of them. He built a series of sleek boats, one each year, christening them Miss America and adding a Roman numeral from I to X to identify its sequence-year. When his Miss America X raced against Sir Kay Don of England, the race was on the Saint Clair River along the edge of Marine City, Michigan, which was my home town. It was 1933 or '34. Thousands of people came from the Detroit area as well as many other places. They filled up Water Street early in the morning and ate hot dogs from Louis' Cafe, lapped ice cream cones from Ab Mullins' Confectionary and bought the special issue of The Detroit Free Press from me as I worked the swelling crowd. Gar Woods, with his mechanic, Orlin Johnson, aboard, won the race handily as they almost always did; The Harmsworth Trophy remained in the United States again. When the race was over, the people began flowing out of that small town glutting the roads as they went. But on the far west side, the elderly Mrs. Belanger had begun walking into town for groceries, pulling her small wagon as she always did. She had not been aware of this sporting event so was aghast at the huge numbers of people. When she went into the A&P store on Broadway, she said to Clayton O'Dell, the manager, "My! Must be more people in our town today than in Detroit itself. How come, Clayton, what's going on?" Mr. O'Dell's response was, "This is where the action is, Mrs. Belanger. It's where the action is!" -- Hoornstra
