The hazards of a pilot's life are sometimes different than some people
suppose.
For instance, I flew some people to a ranch in Mexico once. I fought bad
weather most of the way from New York to Eagle Pass on the Border,
skimming mountains and swamps, and then flew eighty miles of barren
mountain and desert country to the ranch house.
They insisted the next day that I go out hunting with them. That meant
that I had to ride a horse. I had ridden a horse once before in my life
and remembered it as the most uncomfortable means of transportation ever
invented by man.
But I went with them. I even began to like it after we had been out a
while. I discovered that you could wheel the horse around in a running
turn and that it was almost like banking an airplane around. I was
having pretty good fun experimenting until I noticed that a certain
portion of my anatomy was getting very warm, and then, soon, that it was
getting very tender. Pretty soon I began to think that we would never
get back to the ranch house. When we finally did, my pants and my
anatomy were brilliantly discolored. And when I went to take the pants
off, I noticed that quite a bond had developed between me and them,
quite an attachment indeed! They were stuck fast and could be persuaded
away from me only with their pound of flesh.
I decided that I would stick to my airplane after that. But the next
day, I discovered that my airplane was uncomfortable too--and I had to
make a five-hour flight to Mexico City.
When I got to Mexico City everything was uncomfortable, and I had to eat
my dinner off the mantelpiece that night. There was an additional
humiliation. The doctor had to undress me. He had to use plenty of hot
oil and go very easy.