Commentary.

On a rare cooler summer evening earlier this month, from my lawn chair on the concrete pad outside our barn, I watched my new 10-year-old friend do cartwheels, roundoffs and back handsprings. I asked her if she was going to be a cheerleader. Coming up from a back walkover, the pretty little freckle-faced girl said matter-of-factly, “No. I’m going to be a diesel mechanic.”

“I meant a high school cheerleader,” I said, “Tell me more about being a diesel mechanic.”

She explained to me that since she was three years old, she has wanted to be a mechanic, and her dad told her about how diesel mechanics work on tractors and trucks and even boats and she thought that would be more interesting.

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