California, Early 1936
In the weeks that followed, Russ Oberman was as good as his word. He left everything to Barbara. He became not only a silent but invisible partner, dividing his time between a cat house in Mohave and walking his dog, but mainly in bed in a back room behind the office at the airport.
He asked Barbara for only one thing: "Keep the ice box stocked with that Mexican beer?" She promised, and kept her word.
Two things Barbara had to do almost simultaneously. For one, she needed a way to buy some paint and fix-up materials without having to pay for them, at least not right away. She would not spend to hire a carpenter and painter, she would make the airport presentable herself.
For the other, there was no way out of it: she had to hire a mechanic to put the Jenny and Cub in flying condition. If she couldn't get them into the air, she had no airport and no future. And Russ Oberman admitted sheepishly that he could fly a plane but knew less than nothing about fixing one.
Barbara had no one else to turn to locally. Even though she didn't think Edna Genda knew beans about airplanes, she revisited her in hopes her new friend might know of someone who did.
"Buck and I went to an air show at Bakersfield last fall," Edna recalled over more lemonade on her front porch. "There's another airport there. You might find a mechanic there who can help you. Really wish I could help you more with the fix-up and painting at your place, but all I can give you is Sundays. Be glad to come over and hammer and nail and splash paint around for you then. The rest of the week, I'm a one-woman show here. Buck does what he can, but I can't count on him because he drifts off without any warning."
When Barbara looked at Buck, rocking in his chair as he did most of every day, he was in his own world again. She liked him so much, and felt so sorry for him. If boxing had done that to him, she vowed she would never see a match. That way, she would not break her record.
Seeing what a wonderful man like Buck Genda had become because of boxing crystallized everything she had against men who overdid the whole thing about being a man. Boxing especially became to her the epitome of something she had no use for: machismo. The glorification of a male's ego carried to the extreme.
What did men think they had to prove by being so macho? Was the male sex trying to prove to the female sex their dominance over them? Or were men trying to prove that to themselves?