(2 of 5)
The picture of "Slim" Lindbergh that U. S. people should have had was of a rawboned farm boy with a fine, useful mind and a rare way with airplanes. He had an infectious grin that made vertical wrinkles up & down his weatherbeaten cheeks (as it still does). Around St. Louis, where he flew the St. Louis-Chicago mail run in fair and foul weather with calculated cunning, he had got along well-with reporters, had figured often in the news and liked it.
When he had a story to tell, he gave it to newspapermen succinctly, clearly, with a photographic eye for detail and colorful incident. More than that, he was an authentic, native character. When he had done something worth while he smiled for photographers. Once, when there was no particular reason for taking his picture, he was asked to smile. As Calvin Coolidge might have, he asked: "At what?"
When he was not flying the mail he was instructing students. He seemed never to tire of the air. On the ground he studied airplane and engine design, or poked around the flying field shops. He ate prodigiously (as he still does) and had a prodigious love for practical jokes (as he still does). For his practical jokes, which were often rough, occasionally cruel, he got many a rough return from other fliers, but was never discouraged.
Had Lindbergh been a man like Admiral Byrd, had he courted glory, the public would have grown complacent about him soon enough. But because he had an honest literal personality and no need for glory, he was doomed to it.
When he landed in Paris—equipped with letters of introduction so that he would not be stranded—he had his first taste of public adulation and it was good. He had done something which, after it was done, his logical mind could perceive, was reasonable occasion for acclaim. He had the time of his life standing on the Aero Club balcony with Ambassador Herrick and waving flags at the crowd below. When he returned to the U. S. after visiting the capitals of Europe and rode, up Fifth Avenue in a paper shower, he knew that he had hit the jackpot, and he was willing to enjoy it while it lasted. He had no idea that he would have to be a hero for twelve years.
As the hero worship went on, slowly, almost imperceptibly, Lindbergh began to freeze up. People wanted to paw him and he did not like to be pawed. Women wanted to kiss him and he angrily pulled away. Because he kept a distance, the public became more hysterical. In St. Louis, after he had left an outdoor table where he had eaten—as heartily as usual—with fellow officers of his old squadron, he finally saw what he was up against: women broke through the lines and fought for the still damp corncobs which he had chewed clean and left in a small mountain beside his plate.
He knew he was a good flier and had been pleased to have the public acknowledge it, but matter-of-fact Lindbergh could no more understand the public's mass hysteria than the public could understand him.