Results: At the Airport

One of my late mother's fondest memories of the mid to late 40s was of ending a date or an evening out with friends at the Memphis airport. There were people and planes to watch. And pie. Specifically, a delight known as Black Bottom Pie. Gingersnap cookie crust topped with a layer of dark chocolate custard followed by a layer of rum custard topped with whipped cream. Have you ever heard of Black Bottom Pie?

My favorite part of a visit to our local airport (then Dayton Municipal) was a display from a local and long forgotten meat packer. A mechanized model showed farm trucks loaded with tiny pigs entering the factory at one end, and delivery vehicles with the meatpacker's logo exiting from the other. A window in the center of the building showed a moving conveyer belt with cuts of pork. Mesmerizing and horrifying all at the same time. Were you ever fascinated by something when you were a kid that you now consider bizarre?

By today's standards, the Dayton airport in the 60s was fairly uninteresting, I suppose. But to childish eyes? We saw things there that we saw no where else. Do you remember....

News reports about air travel today make it hard to remember those days when one could check in at the ticket counter then stroll to the gate. Waiting was made easier by discretely watching the little farewell dramas surrounding you (while enacting your own). Or better still, seeing the reactions of passengers exiting the gate when they recognized someone waiting for them. There may be no truer test of a relationship than the answer to a request for a ride to or from the airport. Have you ever...

One evening when I was perhaps ten or so, my sister and I drove to the airport with Dad. For, of all things, a book. He'd run to the earth some bestseller that was out of stock everywhere else. Anyway. Dad got his book. Peaches and I got popcorn from the pseudo-Country Store. And then. By what magic, I don't know. Except that my father- who was a light aircraft pilot- never met a stranger. We were escorted into the Air Traffic Control Tower. Have you ever been inside an airport control tower?