Back then, men were men and women were women, and everybody thought that was a good idea! Airplanes were real machines built by real people, not robots. They were put together lovingly out of fabric and metal and plywood and noise and sweat. They had monster reciprocating gasoline engines on each side and control surfaces that worked by the power of the pilot's and copilot's muscles, and they were polished to loving perfection by real professionals who loved airplanes and took pride in their work.

Real men flew the aircraft in those days; some of them had the scars to prove it. They got their "simulation time" for commercial flying on runs they called "the Hump" and "the Berlin Corridor," and sometimes they ended the flight all alone under 40 pounds of silk. They walked like men, too, with the suppressed swagger that comes from knowing that if they could thread their way through treacherous Himalayan mountain passes at 18,000 feet at 20 below zero with 20 drums of gasoline on board or over the treetops into Templehof with four tons of coal, they could damn well ferry 26 passengers through "friendly skies" over the US heartland.

They flew where they wanted and when they wanted, not where some puissant civil service exam squeaker or corporate weenie told them to. If they decided to wait a couple of hours for the weather to clear, the passengers either damn well waited patiently with them or they didn't fly and the pilots didn't worry about it either way because they answered only to themselves and the Almighty.

The passengers were better then, too. They realized that flying was a temporary liberation from the surly bonds of earth, reserved for a fortunate few who could afford it because they or their husbands or fathers did something important for a living. They were as grateful for the opportunity to get a little closer to heaven as they were to get back on the ground in one piece afterward and, more often than not, on time. They prepared appropriately for the occasion, too. The women dressed in fancy feminine outfits with bright colors and ruffles and bows. They smelled nice and wore hats and gloves and stockings and real shoes with narrow heels on them. The men shined their shoes and wore neckties and suits with matching vests and clean, pressed shirts and starched collars.

The children were clean and well groomed and accompanied their parents because parents were supposed to stay with their kids and vice versa. They were quiet and well-mannered and respectful. Like everyone else they were just a little in awe of the fact that they were going to travel in a realm that up to only a half century previously had been reserved exclusively for the angels. The nearest fat, sweaty matron in pajamas and shower shoes was indoors, enroute from her bedroom to the shower, and if she ever had the nerve to show herself in a public place like that, much less an airport, she'd have been arrested for vagrancy and public indecency and rightly so!

Everybody prepared for the flight by gathering together in a drafty, noisy, uncomfortable waiting room next to a ramp or taxiway where you could listen to the weather reports and hear the pilots talking to each other and look at the map and marvel at the fact that ordinary people like you could get from sea to shining sea in a single day through the marvels of modern technology. You got to see the aircraft you were going to fly in land and taxi to the gate and shut down its engines. You had the wonderful opportunity to actually inspect the gleaming exterior of the marvelous craft and feel the invisible blast of heat from the mighty engines and smell the heady aroma of oil and engine exhaust and bond emotionally with the creation of steel and aluminum you were going to trust with your very life and maybe that of your entire family.

If you got a little grease on your new suit or a little dust blown on you by the prop blast from an airplane at another gate, it was all part of the glorious adventure that made you feel like a seasoned veteran traveler when you told your admiring friends and neighbors about it for weeks on end afterward as they listened fascinated and with just a bit of jealousy.

People didn't worry about terrorists then, because cowards were considered even more despicable, and the sissies stayed home where they belonged. The flight crew got their wings the old fashioned way, by earning them in the service of their country, not by taking a "cruise flight only" course at some candy-ass flight school that sold diplomas for a few thousand dollars in converted rials or dinars to candidates who spoke only Arabic and broken English. Besides, the preflight waiting room was a weeding-out process where anybody who didn't seem to belong got questioned by his fellow passengers as well as the flight crew, and if he couldn't prove he was a loyal American he didn't fly and that was that because the captain was the boss and he made the decisions and everyone knew that was the way it was supposed to be.

In those days, J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men in action kept us safe by keeping tabs on "suspicious characters" and arresting them when they did something illegal, regardless of who their ancestors or attorneys were or whether they had a happy childhood or belonged to a "racial profile." If they did catch somebody planning on committing a terrorist act, a jury of responsible citizens who understood the fundamental difference between public danger and religious persecution would send him or her to the gas chamber or the electric chair and good riddance!

Airplanes were called "ships" back then, with individual names like "Spirit of San Francisco" and "Lollipop." Just getting into one was a magical experience, climbing up a spindly little ladder and struggling up an unexpectedly steep incline that ended at a tiny enchanted compartment that only the crew were allowed to enter. You could glimpse through the tiny doorway that it was resplendent with strange and mysterious dials, switches and levers and impossibly small windows. The passengers' cozy compartment smelled of soap and disinfectant and machine oil, and reminded one of far away places like Persia or perhaps the Land of Oz!

If you were really lucky, you got to enter a little door on the left side set into a bigger door that was painted shut to keep the fat people out. If you were really, really lucky, you noticed a little row of half inch holes, neatly patched with little riveted aluminum squares, that testified that your airplane had earned its wings the same way the crew had earned theirs, and the Purple Heart as well.

You were helped into your somewhat magical and unfamiliar seat by a real stewardess who was so much more than a glorified drink vendor that no sane person would have confused the two. She was, in fact, a real nurse, trained additionally to bring the psychological comfort of the "female touch" to otherwise panicky passengers as well as deal competently and professionally with any calamity that could possibly arise. She was crisp and nice and warm, and smelled of lilacs and baby powder and made you feel welcome as well as comfortable and safe as in your mother's arms. Anyone who believed, even a little, that the job she did could have been done as well by someone not designed over millions of years to be a comforter and nurturer and mother surrogate was recognized as strange and kept his opinions to himself if he was wise.

The passengers got to participate in the flight, too. Each row of seats had its own tiny window, from which you could peer out and see the control surfaces wiggle up and down and watch the engines turn slowly over and then belch smoke and flame as they sputtered to throbbing life. Sometimes you could even see the corkscrew contrails from the propeller tips as their raw energy shoved you back a little into your seat when the aircraft began moving and rumbling to the runway. Then the full force of their awesome power mashed you deep into your seat cushions as the ground dropped away and you were borne aloft by two thousand horses in full fury.

Finally, as the gear retractors whined to a stop and the power and propellers transitioned from takeoff to cruise, you could breathe again and peek out the window to be astonished at the sight of the inconsequentially puny works of man that up to that moment had been your entire world!

They had magazines and things on board, but nobody cared, because you could read a magazine anytime, but flying was always a new, incredibly emotional experience. The stewardess would point out this and that attraction far below as the captain's attention was fixed on keeping the aircraft functioning and in the air and going where it was supposed to go and smoothing out the bumps. And when it was announced that you had to fasten your seat belts for descent, it was always too soon. No matter how urgently you wanted to get to your destination, you secretly wished that you could keep going a little longer before you were once again squashed into a merely horizontal reality, one that lacked a magical dimension that until then you had never known existed.

And when you had finished your flight and the engines had burbled to a stop and everything was quiet, you climbed reluctantly down the rickety little ladder onto the strangely unfamiliar ground once again, and you fervently thanked the smiling flight crew, not to be courteous, but because you were truly grateful. You realized that you had been profoundly and fundamentally changed from the mortal you had only recently been! For the time you had entrusted your life and your safety to them, the crew had brought you to the edge of creation and shown you the promise of Paradise. And if you had not touched, at least you had been granted the opportunity, for a moment at least, to behold the face of God.

John Lindorfer