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By Mary Hoffman: My father, Ed Greding, kept a journal during the late twenties and early thirties. He was very involved with flying and airplanes and ended up working on them most of his life. He had this section about his meeting with Lindbergh. The italics were added by him in about 1970. Hope you find it interesting. I would love to get any pictures of Lindbergh during his stop at Love Field in Dallas.

Well, looks like little diary is getting somewhat neglected. “Lindy” (Col. Chas. A Lindbergh) was here Tuesday p.m. and Wed. morning. He sure is a funny fellow. I place his age at about 23 or 25, about six feet two or so, skinny as a rail and hard as nails. He is awkward, as many real men are. Seemed very much embarrassed by the crowd—in spite of the long time he has been receiving homage everywhere he went. No doubt about it, I think—the great “Lindy” is woman-shy. I don’t mean that every real man is that way—couldn’t afford to say that, for I’m anything but and pride myself on being a he-man of the old school, but it is true that many brave men shake at the knees when among women. (Modest little cuss, wasn't I??)

Drawing by Ed Greding

That man is the blamedest flier I ever saw. The papers said he “side-slipped” to a landing: and that’s sure just what he did. He circled around the field a couple of times, then deliberately, at about a hundred feet up, turned his machine on it’s side and dropped sideways, right down to the ground—then leveled off at an altitude of what looked to me like about eighteen inches!

I was a member of his plane guard and got a good chance to look the ship over. It was some different than most! The “The Spirit of St. Louis” as he calls it, is a Ryan Cabin Monoplane ~ and is blind as a bat!

There is a little window above his head and one in each door. These serve to give him a sideward view, but he can see little above and nothing below, forward or back! Darned if I’d like to fly a plane like that! This was a Ryan Brougham, parasol monoplane, then in the blueprint stage only, built with a huge gas tank where the pilot’s cockpit and part of the cabin should be. Pilot sat behind the tank, with a periscope for what little forward vision he had. He didn’t expect much traffic over the Atlantic! He side-slipped to land partly because of this, and partly because, although a fantastic navigator, he was really a poor precision pilot—which nobody knew better than he did!) It is powered with the now famous Wright Whirlwind (J-5 220 HP) engine.