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“Pat, are you here?” Ted searched the house for his wife. He finally located her in the room he should’ve looked in first, the kitchen.

Patricia sat at the little round table, ignoring a pile of photographs and brochures scattered before her. Instead, she sipped her coffee as she read a letter. When Ted entered the room, she put down the cup and smiled at her husband. “I have wonderful news. Your parents are coming out for a visit. They’ll be here on Saturday.”

“Saturday?” Ted went to the stove to pour his own cup. “I spoke to mother on the phone two nights ago. They were still in Florida. A train takes several days to cross the country. Even if they left right away, they wouldn’t arrive until sometime next week.

“They aren’t traveling by train, Patricia said with a twinkle in her eye. “Your mom and dad are going to fly!”

“What?” Ted’s hand shook, sending a wave of coffee sloshing over the lid of his cup. He steadied his grip, then traversed the kitchen to collapse in a chair. “The only time my father’s feet have left the ground was when he got into an elevator and now, you’re telling me he’s voluntarily going up in an airplane?”

“According to your mother, yes.” Patricia handed the letter to her spouse. “They booked tickets on a brand-new Lockheed Constellation. Takeoff is at breakfast, and they’ll get here in time for dinner!”

Ted studied the tightly written script of his mother’s letter carefully. “I’m reading this, but I still don’t believe it. My father has been complaining about newfangled gadgets for decades. Sometimes I think he would be happy if he lived in the era of the horse and buggy.”

“Apparently your dad wants to leap into the 20th-century.” Pat pointed to the last paragraph of the letter. “Though it may have something to do with his lodge buddy who presented an excruciatingly long slideshow to the membership, chronicling each detail of his first flight.”

“Ah, jealousy. I know the feeling.” They had recently repainted their living room. He got the idea when their best friends had decided to spruce up their own kitchen. “There’s nothing like keeping up with the neighbors,” Ted said. “Still, I’m glad this happened. Dad is going to complain and moan the whole way, yet deep down he’ll have the time of his life! Once he gets over being scared out of his wits when the wheels leave the ground.”

“It is a little unnerving until you get used to it,” Patricia agreed. “Remember our first flight?”

“Yep, and I see you do too,” Ted waved a hand over the items scattered across the table top. There were several snapshots, both in black-and-white and color. Each showed Ted and Patricia dressed in their Sunday best. In one photo they stood proudly in front of a DC-3, just at the base of the stairs used to board the aircraft. “I can admit it now. I was really scared. Flying was so different from anything we had ever known. We had no idea what it would be like.”

“At least until we got this brochure from United Airlines. Remember? It showed us every step of the trip, before we left the ground.”

“I remember.”

Ted sighed and leaned back in his chair. “That was the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.”

“Me too,” Patricia agreed. “The hum of the engines was soothing, like a mechanical lullaby.”

“A lullaby lost to history,” Ted observed. “With the speed of the new planes flying today, no need for a sleeping birth and overnight flights.”

“Yes, thanks to modern technology your folks will be here— tomorrow!” Patricia leapt to her feet, almost knocking over her chair. “The house is a mess! Don’t just sit there! Haul the vacuum up from the basement. We’ve got work to do!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

As they scurried off to clean, we get to marvel about details of a wondrous journey of a era long past. A time when a new invention called the airplane crisscrossed the night sky.

Truly Glorious Vintage Stuff!