The Aviatrix

When I was a little tiny kid, like 3 or 6, commercial aviation was still a novelty, still glamorous.  My parents put me on the plane from San Francisco to Burbank without a thought--no nametags, no security stuff, nothing.  500 miles?  1000?  No big deal!  They knew I'd ingratiate myself.  Little tiny Me, aloft.  I loved it.

I still see the interior of the DC-3 as if it were two weeks ago:  two-and-two seating, scratchy grey flannel upholstery, the smokesmelling plane humming/buzzing /bouncing through deepdark night, me cruising up and down the aisle, offering mints like the little stewardess I was and would be.  (I got plastic wings for this.)  My fellow passengers were mostly asleep, though, so I usually ended up in the cockpit on the pilot's lap, watching the lights and meters, calm as you please.   Sometimes I got to steer, but more often I just curled up on a uniformed lap and fell asleep to the hum of the engines. 

I distinctly recall being carried off a DC-3 by some guy in a uniform and handed over to my uncle Zack, a 6'4" Lockheed executive and cowboy who often got mysterious phone calls that sent him striding out of his ranch house in the wee tiny hours.  I took more than one of these calls myself:  "Hello?" 

"Zack Z________, please.  This is Howard Hughes calling." 

"He's asleep, sir."

"He eeeeeeyuz?"  Mr. Hughes sounded surprised. 

"Yessir.  It's three o'clock in the morning here, sir."

"Well, tayulll him I wanna TAWK to him!"   

"Yessir.  Yes.  Just one minute, sir."  And I'd pad down the Mexican tile hallway to my aunt and uncle's sacred bedroom, bang on the door and yell, "Uncle Zack, Mr. Hughes is on the phone!"      

Mumbling. 

Then Uncle Zack would burst out of the bedroom and pound down the hall and into his Cadillac or his peacup, and off he'd roar to meet Mr. Hughes at the Burbank or Van Nuys airports.  Nobody ever knew why.

And I'm not making this up.

Comments

[Pica]

So I'm wondering how many MORE of this little tibbets you're going to drop on us--they seem inexhaustible, Doc.

[chorusgirl]

And I thought I knew everything there was to know about you. But not ANY of this. Go figure.

[beth]

So what do you THINK Uncle Zack was doing? Better than that, though, are the bits about you, the little aviatrix, on the plane. Times have certainly changed.