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107

WACO

We left for New York and the Air Races. Part honeymoon but mostly business. Sam warned me that I would have to do without him most of the time. N.Y. City was strange to me as I had always been taken there with my parents. Sam would give me a halfday just for me to do with what I wanted. To his hilarious surprise, what I would like to do was take a ferry boat ride with all the familiar docking sounds and smells; to ride up Fifth Avenue and Riverside Drive on the top of a bus. I dreaded going to Air Races for I would miss the "Wa.a.ko!" shouts for the demand dead stick landings, the barrel rolls of "Buck" Weaver. Sam had voiced the same feelings. I had my rides, admired the three WACO NINES (Sam's achievement in design, colors, and solving the motor problem). Most of all the way Sam stood out in that lobby crowded with Hotel residents and the rush through the commuters. School friends came to see us, we danced (not Sam) to Vincent Lopez's orchestra, Sam's searching eyes wooing me from afar, and found the reason for "those wicked green eyes" was a fever.

With a hotel nurse in attendance, I stayed in bed the next day. She gave me "castor oil", always detestable stuff but on my honeymoon??? Streamlining frequently into the bathroom, I hit my outer toe, right foot, on the door jam. Heard a pistol like shot and when I came out of my 9th faint, my toe had been set by the doctor and nurse, and I heard the nurse say, "One more she'll be through." I was glad for Sam's sake he was late getting in and rarest of all, pleasantly plastered a "No, no for his heart."

Next day, after being so sick, my usual pattern had me up ready to go. A fact that always consoled George. In the lobby while looking at the baseball scores Eddie Fairchild came along, no longer our High School cheer leader and recognized me immediately, after 8 yrs. He didn't mind the limp, hardly admired the WACOS, met our L.IS. Distributors, Betty Huyler (chocolate) Gillies and husband, said to me, "Good god, who ever expected you to grow up beautiful." Yes, I was grown up..and glad to be a loved woman."