Andrew's First Flight and Memories

Andrew boarded the plane in Little Rock, Arkansas to fly to Dallas; he walked into the plane and asked me if he could sit in the vacant seat next to me, by all means of course, I said. Then he asked me again if it was ok to have the skate boards with him, … It was his first flight and he was all nervous.  

Jeff my Son was 8 years old when I took him to India, he did not want to take his roller blades off even in the plane… and in the Mumbai Airport he had a show, we had about six hours to kill in the airport to catch flight to Bangalore, so we stayed in the Airport from 2AM to 7AM... he was all excited and roller blading in circles. Before too long we had a huge audience circled around us watching Jeff’s show.  In Bangalore Airport at that time, they pulled the ladder to the plane and then you walk on the run way and walk to the airport, he roller bladed his way. I was smiling all the way.

I recalled my own first flight, all nervous and worried sick about life… I assured him that it will be just fine. He was going on and on and on… within a few minutes I noticed that every one in the plane went on a HELP gear with him. The flight attendant to the lady on the aisle seat... I thought about it long and hard about the human inclination to help.  There is a “HELP” node built into each one of us and it instantly operates on a need basis.

When the plane took off, he closed his eyes and he was trembling badly, I assured him placing my hand on his that every thing will be alright.  I pulled the window shade down on the window directly facing him so he does not have to see outside. Once up in the air, he was alright but frightfully stealing glances of the outside to gauge if he is really up in the air… once we landed, he gasped.

The flight attendant and I asked him to take a deep breath he was such a good kid! I recall some of it happening to me.

Way back in 1982, “DW” and I took a 2 seater Mooney to Marshall, Texas, we could not spot the strip to land… so he took a dive and literally my heart was in my mouth and about to come out of it.  Between the thin door and I, there was barely a 6” space and you look on the right, it’s the earth way below… we passed through the cloud into open… same feeling again.  On the way back DW asked me to navigate while he was reviewing the Blue print of for the Sprinkler Systems were engineering for a plant in Marshall.

Memory is amazing, one small thing can jog your memory and you go places. Did you go places?

Mike Ghousehttp://www.mikeghouse.net/