The Public "I": PART VI; AMAZING RACE, TROUBLE AT HOME

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

PART VI; AMAZING RACE, TROUBLE AT HOME

I am impressed with the level of cupidity amongst the participants in the amazing race. (It means they were avaricious.) Certainly the pilots, Bob Fowler and Cal Rogers, were risking their lives day after day and deserved some reward for that risk. At Dallas, where Cal stopped on the night of the 17th of October, and at Fort Worth, where Cal put in two days of flights before 75,000 at the state fair, he sold photo’s and autographs, as Bob Fowler did at his stops, just as musicians do today at personal appearances. And there were always the “Vin Fiz” coupons Cal was still dropping over unsuspecting soda drinkers in cities where he did not land. The Waco Texas Young Men’s Business League offered Cal an impressive fee and on October 20th he took a long detour south and did several loops around the cities’ sky single sky scrapper.

But acquisitiveness was evident amongst everyone associated with the race, and even Mable had gotten into the act. Dear, sweet, shy, retiring innocent Mable Rogers had tried to convince the United States Post Office that the historical nature of the race warranted creating her a special “Post Mistress”, so that she could stamp “Postmarked Vin Fiz Special” on cards and letters bought from her while en route, for a small fee, of course. But when that moneymaking idea failed to inspire Congress to act, and after W.R. Hearst had abandoned the race (and her husband) in Missouri, Mable sent Cal’s brother Robert out ahead to Kansas City to order unofficial oversized “Vin Fiz Flyer” and “Rogers Aerial Post” stamps, to be sold at a quarter apiece once the Flyer had crossed into Texas. Buyers would still have to affix official postage to have anything delivered, and the stamps had no glue backing, but Mable was trying squeeze every penny out of the insanity she was caught up in.

It’s difficult to know if enough stamps were actually sold to cover the cost of printing them, but we do know that only thirteen “Vin Fiz” stamps still survive, eight on postcards, one on a letter and four “off cover”, meaning individually. One of the “off cover” stamps sold in 2006, when the world was still drunk, for $70,000. That amount could have financed the entire flight back in 1911. I guess Mable had the right idea, just bad timing, as I’m willing to bet Maria (ne Rogers) Sweitzer, Cal’s mother, reminded her at every opportunity.

Avarice of all kinds was on view in the hothouse of the 66 foot long by 8 ½ foot wide pressure cooker of the “Vin Fiz Special” Pullman sleeping car, with wife and mother-in-law cooped up for endless days together on the endless stretches of track between the way stations of civilization across the American West. The air must have been thick with slights (real and imagined), invective (real & imagined), criticism and denunciations, both real and perceived. The two ladies endured each other for Cal’s sake, from New York to Chicago. Then mother Maria found an excuse to leave the train. But at Kansas City she rejoined the caravan, only to disembark yet again at San Antonio. Perhaps the expense of printing up the stamps came up once too often in conversation, because when Maria rejoined the train outside of El Paso she brought reinforcements – 22 year old Lucy Belvedere, a reputed heiress, and at least in Maria’s mind, an improvement over Mable. For example, I presume that dear Lucy could swim.

It would appear that Cal was somewhat distracted by the drama building in the Pullman car. In what can only be seen as an omen, as he approached El Paso, Cal had a near miss in mid-air with an eagle, or maybe it was a vulture. On the 24th of October at Spofford, Texas, Cal’s attention slipped just enough to allow his right propeller to strike the ground, sending him into a ground loop that broke another wing and “splintered” both props. Through yet another Herculean effort Chief mechanic Charlie Taylor and his first assistant, Charlie “Wiggie” Wiggin, were able to get Cal back into the air the next morning. Then, just before noon on Friday, October 29th this object of maternal v matrimonial completion landed at the corner of Duval and 45th street in Austin, Texas. Three thousand came out to cheer the hero. And Mable was quoted by a local reporter as saying, “Sometimes I suspect that Calbraith thinks showing affection to a woman would be unfaithful to his machine.” Yes, that was Mable’s concern, her husband’s attachment to his machine. I wonder if she noted ironically to herself that one of the things still holding Cal airborne was her corset, strapped into an upper wing as repair.

In Deming, New Mexico, on Halloween, Cal’s ignition system went on the fritz. Still he persevered. He refueled at Wilcox, Arizona on November 1st, and took the short hop from there to Tucson, where he paused just long enough to travel the six blocks from his landing spot to the ball park where Bob Fowler’s "Cole Flyer" had landed, and shake his hand. In fact Cal was so rushed the photographers had no time to snap a picture. It seems that Mable had finally showed a nerve equal to her Cal’s, and this time she wasn’t waiting to be rescued.

After the refueling stop at Wilcox, Arizona Lucy had discovered that her entire trousseau had been stolen from her compartment. As Mother Maria and Lucy digested this horrifying disaster, shy little Mable quietly informed them that the luggage was not missing. Rather it was perfectly safe...aboard the east bound baggage car of the train they had just passed at the station back at Wilcox, placed there by "Wiggie" on Mables' instructions. It was a display of verve and determination that Maria had not expected out of Mable. And while Cal struggled for fame and fortune above the unforgiving desert of Arizona, Lucy gathered her few remaining belongings and left the “Vin Fiz Special” via the next east bound passenger train, with her tail between her legs, chasing her corsets and her luggage back into Texas, and out of the pages of history.