Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 1029

At 4 in the morning he called up. He said, “Find your girl,” chuckling, “and I will be by for you in 20 minutes and we'll go right away.”

So 20 minutes later he came up in a little automobile and we went out to the airport. He had this little one-motor plane. And Mina, scared beyond belief (and I should have been), climbed in.

We left the field at about half past 4 in the morning. It was a perfect night. As we got up in the air, it was cold as hell. This was about the first of June, but it was very cold up there. Mina started shivering. Then in about a half hour, we ran into this storm. They weren't kidding, and this little one-motor plane began bouncing around, and Mina got deathly sick--green. The general got very concerned about her. He was one of the nicest men I ever encountered. He said, “She's cold; she's shivering.” He took off his jacket. He had nothing underneath it but an undershirt, one of these old-fashioned undershirts with sleeves, you know--ribbed underwear with sleeves. He took it off and put it around Mina and sat there in the cold in his undershirt--the general! She got a little warmer, but she was miserable, and we were bouncing around in the air. Even I, who don't get sick very often, began to get queasy. He said, “Luckily, a little bit ahead is my home village. We will land there and give your girl a little rest and get some breakfast.”

So about 6 in the morning we came down in a potato field in the middle of Russia. We didn't see a soul, but after we





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help