Dick Blythe, who handled Lindbergh's publicity not only after Lindbergh
came back from Paris but also, as Dick stated to me, just before
Lindbergh went to Paris, is a bit of aviation folklore in himself.
I just ran into Dick over at the Roosevelt Field restaurant, and he told
me this one about Dean Smith. Dean is one of the oldest air-mail pilots.
He started flying the mail 'way back in the postoffice days, just after
the war. He is a lean six-foot-two, easy-going guy who would never talk
much about his flying.
Dick caught him just after he had returned from one of his crackups in
the Alleghanies in the old days when Roosevelt Field was called Curtiss
Field and the mail went out of there instead of out of Newark as it does
now. Dean was just pouring his long self into the cockpit of another DH
to take the night mail out again.
"Where in the hell have you been?" Dick greeted him.
"Oh," Dean said, "I had a hell of a time the other night. Just got
back."
"What happened?" Dick asked him.
"Aw, I got tangled up with a load of ice after dark. She started losing
altitude, and I eased a little more gun to her. She kept on losing, so I
eased a little more gun to her. She still kept on losing, so I eased all
the gun she had. She was squashing right down into the trees. I had done
everything I knew and couldn't hold her up. So I said, 'Here, God, you
fly it awhile,' and turned her loose and threw my arms up in front of my
face.
"I guess it must have been tough, because He cracked her up. He piled
into that last ridge just outside of Bellefonte."