Archer Winsten writes that "different" column in the _Post_, In the Wake
of the News. I met Archer for the first time in San Antonio in 1927. He
was down there for his health, and I was instructing at Brooks Field for
my living. We both had ideas of writing even at that time. We became
fast friends before Archer went home to Connecticut and I went to March
Field, Riverside, Cal.
I resigned from the army the next year and went with the Department of
Commerce. I was assigned to fly Bill McCracken, head of the department,
on about a seven-thousand-mile tour of the country. I kept asking Bill
if his itinerary was going to take us to Westport, Conn., or anywhere
near it, because if it was I wanted to go see my friend Archer Winsten,
who lived there. He said he didn't know where the place was, and I began
looking for it on the map. I couldn't find it and told Bill that. I
remarked how strange it was several times later that I couldn't find
Westport on the map. A couple of times Bill asked me if I had found it
yet, and I said no.
I was strange to the East at that time, and when we got to Hartford I
was sure we were going to go right past Westport without my ever finding
out where it was. I complained to Bill about it and we both looked over
a map and couldn't find the place.
The next day we started down to New York from Hartford and ran into
lousy weather. It got so low finally that, although I was following
railroads and valleys, I decided that I couldn't go any farther. I
milled around, dodging trees and hills for about ten minutes before I
found a place to sit down.
I landed in a small field surrounded with stone fences. A man came
wading through the wet grass toward us after we had stopped rolling.
Bill asked me where we were, and I said I had only a vague idea after
all that milling around but would ask the man. The man said Westport.
Bill howled with delight. Part of his delight undoubtedly was relief at
getting down out of that soup without breaking his neck, but I was never
able to convince him that I didn't know I was landing at Westport.