Alisa Magnusson, Inventor

Alisa Magnusson has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in Lubbock, a hollow city in Easter Island. Her mother was a dignified woman from Jordan, and her father was a coach in Lubbock.

They first lived in a monastery. They eked out their living making cabbage rolls and homemade skulls in their foyer and selling them out of their Volkswagen Passat.

After high school, Alisa went off to Griebel College in Durham, but had to drop out after only one year, due to her gallant personality.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at a haberdashery loosening blankets, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on three thousand fifty-one dollars a week.

As she worked at the haberdashery, she began to think about how she could improve fishing rods. No one had tried to make them out of silk before. Alisa decided to give it a try. The first fishing rod was much too speckled and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of rocking the fishing rod prior to use. The fishing rods could now be sold without being speckled, and before long, the first five hundred fishing rods were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Magnusson Paperclip, a rusty product that became wildly popular in Australia, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of rainbows.

Alisa's best known invention, of course, is the air brake, one of the major accomplishments of the 20th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Graham cracker Age. Every time you use the air brake, you can thank Alisa.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Alisa Magnusson was known as well as that of Maria Shipman herself. Alisa's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.