And when that realization began to dawn on me—dimly at first—the question of what to do about it again arose in my mind.
I pondered the matter a long time. I was already over the romantic notion that the thing to do was to go to Russia, as I had had a spell of thinking. I sensed that that, in a way, would be running away. It occurred to me to join the party, but I didn’t know exactly how to go about it or even if I could. I furthermore didn’t get a very clear picture of just what good I could do even if I did. I was also, having got married and begun a family in the meantime, pretty much absorbed in personal adjustment and just the plain economic details necessary to existence.
It finally occurred to me that I could do something for the radical cause right where I was, in aviation, instead of going to Russia. But what? And how? I didn’t know. I decided that there were undoubtedly people in the party who did. If you want to build a house, go to an architect. If you want to build an airplane, go to an aeronautical engineer. If you want to build a revolutionary organization, go to a revolutionary leader. It was a naïve but a direct, an honest, and a logical method of reasoning, you must admit. So I found out from the _Daily Worker_ where headquarters was and went down.
I felt a little ridiculous and abashed when I got there. I sensed, rather than reasoned, that I was suspected because of my approach. It didn’t bother me enough to stop me, because I was sincere, but it did embarrass me.
Shortly after that, at Roosevelt, I accidentally ran across a mimeographed four-page paper, the organ of a club of aviation students. I picked it up and idly began reading it. It sat me bolt upright in my chair. It expressed everything that I felt. I had thought I was an exception, that nobody else in the whole game felt as I did about economic, social, and political matters. But this paper indicated that I wasn’t a complete exception. It excited me terrifically. I noted the name of the paper and the name of the club that had issued it. I had never before heard of either one. I ran around madly asking everybody I knew what the club was, where it was, who it was. I couldn’t find out much, but I did find where the club rooms were and when meetings were held. I went down to the next meeting. I joined up.