It's Your Life. Live It!

As the plane’s wheels lifted off the runway, I remembered American Airlines now offers free wifi on flights for AAdvantage members. All set to log in, it occurred to me how crazy an idea this would have been when I took my first flight. 

I realized it was probably 50 years ago this month. My dad had just received orders to Germany. I remember overhearing my parents’ concerns about whether my sisters and I would be able to fly. We had ear issues since we were babies. In fact, just months before, I had to get another set of tubes in my ears … at 13 years old!

Mom and dad decided the best course of action would be to scrounge up the money for mom to take all three of us on a “test” flight at the end of our spring break vacation. I can’t even remember where we boarded the flight, but it ended in Mobile, Alabama … the closest commercial airport to our home at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. 

My memories of that flight are a blur of excitement and fear. That first flight fear hits everyone, I expect, but worrying about how much my ears might hurt gave me a lot of extra teenage stress. 

In the end, my ears did just what they were supposed to do, popping at the appropriate time and leaving me with a lifelong appetite for air travel!

In the half century since that flight, I’ve been on nearly every type of commercial plane and at least a dozen-or-so military planes. I sat in the right seat of the cockpit as my husband piloted us into the clouds in a single-engine Piper … I’ve even taken the controls of one with an instructor!  I’ve been in the jump seat on C-5 for a full power take-off out of a military runway in Norway. 

I’ve laid in the pod of a KC-135 and watched the boom operator hook up to an F111 for mid-air refueling.

Like anyone who’s ever flown, I’ve been squished between two other passengers near the back of the plane. I’ve buckled in next to friends and strangers. I’ve been the mom with the crib baby … apologies to those nearby! I’ve flown alone to celebrations and vacations. I’ll never forget my first flight “in front of the curtain” in first class or the first time I managed to afford that lay flat seat on a long-haul flight across an ocean.

Here I am, once again, enjoying a flight. This time, though, I’m logged into the internet, typing a thought on my phone’s screen. For most of the people on the plane, the very idea that this isn’t normal would be shocking. For me, looking back on that first flight, I’m in awe. Fifty years ago there was no internet. Pilots flew with an E6-B … an aviator’s version (sort of) of a cross between a slide rule and a manual computer … to lay out flight legs and calculate times and fuel needs with paper charts. 

Now, a majority of passengers are working or playing on phones and laptops, connected to people on the ground 30,000 feet below or maybe even someone else on another plane halfway around the world. All I can think is, “WOW!”

I have no intention of giving up road trips, but I’ll still opt for a flight more often than not. Because, still, no matter where I am on the plane, every flight is a thrill. Every take off is the beginning (or end) of another adventure.

There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be explored. Relish the excitement every time you can.

©Judy and Greg Romano – All rights reserved.