My dad worked for the US diplomatic service when I was a kid. Our family started out traveling on ocean liners (on the North Atlantic route from Le Havre to New

My dad worked for the US diplomatic service when I was a kid. Our family started out traveling on ocean liners (on the North Atlantic route from Le Havre to New York in the winter: no glamour there). There was our journey from Lagos to NY in 1958: A DeHavilland Comet over the Sahara with four stops for fuel, and a diversion from Paris to Brussels for weather. Then a train to Le Havre on the English Channel, then five days of rough Atlantic weather with a steel plate bolted over the porthole in our cabin. Then the 707 came along. That was then end of the stops for fuel and the multiday ship rides. Every trip took a day or too because of the 707. Then came the 747. And that kind of travel got comfortable. Junior diplomats don't get to take their families in first class, but I did once see the piano in the upstairs lounge. Imagine: lifing a piano from sea level to flight level 370 and not caring about the weight! What an airplane! A have a friend who was a flight attendant working the Teheran evacuation in 1979. They packed the 747 full. People were sitting on the floor in all the aisles. The holds were crammed full of peoples' stuff. And my friend said the plane just rolled and lifted off from Mehrabad Airport like it was full of marshmallows. (Of course, they were only going to Athens from Teheran, and they didn't refuel in Teheran ... the landing on arrival at Mehrabad might have been a bit heavy, eh?) The 747 is a airplane for the ages, and definitely one of the good things of my life. I hope some people who made it possible are reading this. Thanks, you all.