Page:The Fun of It.pdf/208

172 day America’s best-known woman—flyer and flyee combined. It is simply this, that aviation is one of the most progress-bringing occupations today. It is a new kind of transportation, and as such, is an important part of living. It does not lie so close to humanity’s primal needs as food-getting or shelter requirements, but it means a great deal in satisfac­tion and comfort and in the distribution of much that is desirable.

I first met Mrs. Lindbergh at the opening of the forty-eight-hour coast-to-coast service inaugurated by Transcontinental Air Transport when I was one of the passengers on the first-west-bound plane. Colonel Lindbergh brought the first one eastward from Los Angeles, and in Arizona changed to one I was on, piloting it to the coast. With him was Mrs. Lindbergh. Later we met again, as we found ourselves houseguests in the same hospitable Los Angeles home. I think our hosts were no more surprised to have flying guests appear from Long Island than from Long Beach twenty miles away, For aviation has shrunk the continent to less than 12 hours of speed flying, or 36 hours by regular commercial planes.

In fact, so quickly do miles slip away for air travelers that those who are accustomed to thinking in terms of flying often startle their friends who do not. I know I often have to be “whereabouts unknown” for several hours in order not to worry peo­ple who are expecting me to arrive somewhere at a given hour.