Page:The Fun of It.pdf/209

Rh An illustrative instance happened on a recent visit to the coast. I found one day that I had to make a speech at a dinner in a middle western city. My course by air from Los Angeles was about thir­teen hundred miles each way. Of course I flew. The morning of the day of the dinner I was thirty-six hours away by train schedule from the well-known banquet chicken. I didn’t dare let my hosts know where I was lest they despair of my arriving. As it was, I think I turned up a good two hours be­fore my engagement.

It seems to me one of the most significant char­acteristics of the Lindberghs is their habit of doing everything together. Even on the first flight of the new orange-and-black airplane, Mrs. Lindbergh went aloft. She is a willing and capable crew on long flights. I have often heard the Colonel speak of the days when he flew alone and found difficulty in doing certain things. Now he increasingly counts on her active cooperation. One of her responsibili­ties is photographing; or she may take the controls when her husband is occupied with “shooting the sun,” for instance. Indeed, when they made their transcontinental record of fourteen and three-quar­ters hours from coast to coast, Mrs. Lindbergh, us­ing a sextant, acted as navigator. On the trip to the Orient, she added the duties of radio operator to these.

Both of these people consider flying a matter of routine. When they start across the continent, each of them usually takes but a single suitcase. The