I’ve noticed more and more airline passengers taking entire flights with their window blinds closed. I don’t get it.
You’re sitting in a chair inside a metal tube hurtling through the sky, watching the ground pass miles beneath your feet, surfing the wind through towering atolls of clouds! It’s the closest you’ll get to being Superman! An eternal dream of humankind! A scientific miracle!*
Now, it seems that if any sunlight disturbs someone’s nap or reflects off their phone’s tiny screen while they’re watching a movie or playing a game, they pull down their shade.
How could anybody get so bored and jaded? I never take flying for granted.
Back when I was a newspaper reporter, the U.S. Air Force hosted a junket for press to fly across the country and back in a KC-135 Stratotanker. I forget why; I think they were trying to rally public support to save airbases that were slated to close. KC-135s are flying gas stations that refuel fighter jets using a winged boom that hangs from the back of the aircraft—a steerable gas pump nozzle. Operators guided the boom lying on their stomachs while looking through a window in the belly of the plane.
 |
| USAF photo. |
As we flew toward the West Coast at sunset, my photographer Randy and I stretched out in the boom operator’s cold cubbyhole, nothing but glass between us and the Southwestern desert mesas and canyons painting long shadows across the orange earth directly below.
We were flying. It was magical.
.
.
*I do know comedian Louis C.K.’s routine about how blasé everyone has become about flying, but didn’t care to quote or link to it. I’m just noting that here to forestall everyone from pointing it out!
* * *
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE! I am sharing these little "250 Words On" essays via Substack, which will email a new one to your In Box every Tuesday morning. Just follow this link and enter your email address. It's free, and I promise to never use your address for evil purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment