Air Travel Tips

I am writing this column from 35,000 feet. When I was growing up in Porterdale I allowed myself to dream that one day I might write something that another person would want to read in a newspaper, but I never believed I would do it from 6 miles above the earth’s surface on a machine that could connect to a satellite and allow me to begin writing the column upon takeoff and file it before I touched down. I guess it is landing when it is an airplane.

As I sit gazing out the window at the tops of the clouds I am reminded of my very first airplane flight. It was on the Saturday after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered on Friday morning. The telephone rang at our house shortly after 6 am. Yes, the telephone. We had one and were fortunate to have it. I know the time because my mama had just left for work and my daddy, who had gotten home from his shift around midnight, was still sound asleep.

My buddy, Lee Piper, was on the other end of the line and wanted me to drive to Atlanta Hartsfield Airport with him and fly to Washington, D.C. His dad would buy the tickets if Lee could find someone whose parents were crazy enough to let them go along. I was 16.

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