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Waco 114
sustain him.... and me.... and the baby. I couldn't have stood any emotional display, with all of us so belaboured with ill bodies. We went home that evening, to our sickest, Sam. Sam was getting worse. Nothing seemed to bring that fever down. The "intestinal flu", was his old enemy heart, endocarditis.
Doug Davis bus Atlanta distributor had been flying over the state of Pennsylvania, dropping Baby Ruth candy bars, tied by parachutes, in an advertising campaign. Flying over those rolling wooded mountains was considered the most hazardous part of any trip, without Doug having to jockey his ship into a position so the candy bars would float down, rather than into the ship and wires.
Whenever Doug hit town, everything zoomed, with him. He would gun his ship, over our house, over the factory, put on a little exhibition, then in for a landing. We build several Wacos, with an arrangement so Doug could feed the candy bars, down it, from inside the cockpit. The bars would float down free of entanglements, but not so the employees would rush out of the factory, like fire was burning their trow, and become entangled in the wire fence, run into the telephone poles, in their wild rush of joy to see Doug, and to catch the candy floating down from the sky! It looked like a football scrimmage.
One day, soon after Sam was confined to bed, Buddie came tearing home carrying Doug's uniform cap, with Herb hot on his heels. Buddie's face was all excitement and he turned Doug's cap round and round, bursting out with the news before Herb could say a word. He told Sam that the motor had conked out, the why and how, of Doug landing in the river, the damage done, and Doug didn't drown, but was all right, and he had saved his cap for him! The ship had been rescued from the icy water, and in the midst of Sam's concern that the boys would have pneumonia, "which no ship was worth." He laughed proudly and complimented Buddie on his powers of observation. When Doug arrived wrapped up in all the dry spare clothing the boys could dig up, Sam told him the story was "old stuff now", and reiterated that no airplane was worth pneumonia.