The price was $2000. After talking it over with my father he agreed that I needed the plane and that I should have it, and promised to help out in paying for it. But I am afraid my salesmanship was faulty for he did not stay “sold.” I signed the sales contract and plunked down all my available capital to seal the bargain before I knew of his indecision. Consequently, there wasn’t any backing out even if I had wanted to—which I emphatically did not. To pay for that plane I got the first job I ever had, the telephone company taking me on as unskilled labor. I was associated with the office boys at the back of the office, an association which I was told was one of the worst in the organization. We did things to the mail, opened it, sorted it, distributed it. I also filed letters and then tried to find them again. I liked the job and the boys, who were very funny and not the criminals they were pictured. Perhaps this move on my part doesn’t seem very convincing, for obviously my salary as playmate of office boys would have to run on for a long time before it would wipe out the balance of the $2000. But it did help my credit immensely! I think it made my flying companions believe I was in earnest. It also affected mother to the extent that she finally wiped out my indebtedness, on condition I resign and stay home a little. By the way, _she_ has remained sold, and it was her regret she wasn’t with me on the trans-Atlantic flight, if I would go. There was a partnership of interest, and of near poverty, between many of us in those days. Aviation demanded much from its devotees—and there was plenty of opportunity for sacrifice. Many of the pioneers sank their teeth into aviation’s problems at the very beginning—or was it the other way about?—and simply wouldn’t let go. So I owned my own plane. Immediately I found that my whole feeling toward flying had changed. An added confidence and satisfaction came. If I crashed, it was my own responsibility and it was my own property that was being injured. It is the same sort of feeling that obtains, I think, in driving. There is a freedom in ownership which is not possible with a borrowed car.