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Waco              50

IN Spring had come and with it, Buddie and I arrived at Medina Ohio, George and Sam met us at the interurban stop. As soon as we had kissed George, he said, "Kiss Sam, Babe," so I did, with all the enthusiasm that our long separation since Omaha inspired. It was grand to all be to-gether again. We took a room near the shop, in the Schmidt home. Medina is a beautiful little country town and the ease and simplicity of the life spent there, improved the health of both Buddie and me. I had little housework to do, so gained a little of my lost 107 pounds back. The factory force of the Weaver Aircraft Company, that summer in 1922, was George E. Weaver, Sam (ElwoodJ.) Junkin, Clayton J. Brunkner, Herbert Junkin, and Bud Schulenberger, a chap from a nearby town. I let Buddie run wild inoveralls. The extent of his wildness consisted of sitting right close to Sam, who was designing at his improvised drawing board, away from the others, who were doing the building. Buddie played by the hour with Sam's Prince Albert tins, shoveling sawdust into airports and landscapes, or railroads. I curled up in the ford, with its one floor board, and caught up on my reading. Sam said years later, he would often have an artistic line of profanity ready, then remember that I probably was curled up in the Ford, (and being small, I was hardly visible anyhow, especially curled up in the Ford). So he would have to let all his "art" go into puffing on his pipe, and walk around for a few minutes. The Wacos were an outgrowth of a "Jennie", with improvements. The old Jennie tail surfaces were left pretty much as was, and spliced onto the new steel tubing fuselage. It was this splicing that made me uncurl and postpone my reading to a time when my future was not so much at stake. I say my future for I had to be convinced about that splicing. I knew George was the only pilot and the one to fly it, and I could see that whole empinage spanking off in mid-all.