I flew for the first time when I was five years old. My parents, fretting that I was too attached to my mother to survive in school, decided that I should spend the summer in rural Massachusetts with my grandmother, a rather severe relic of the Victorian era, whose task, as she saw it, was to rectify all the mistakes that my mother had made with her new permissive childrearing. But back to the airplane. I was an unaccompanied minor, four years old, and the entire flight crew was determined I should have the most wonderful time I could. They hovered over me with everything a chubby young boy could possibly want to eat, and I took a trip up to the cockpit where I sat on the pilot’s lap and pretended to fly the plane. It was magical. I adored flying.
It is not so wonderful anymore, and flying is something I endure rather than enjoy. The seats are small, the refreshments dreary, and the flight attendants are scarcely more charming than my grandmother. But I will not spend much time complaining about our flights from Medford to New York. Instead, I have to tell you that John Pratt did an amazing job. He was up at three in the morning to get ready to go to the airport. He walked half the length of the Denver airport when we had to change planes and the wheelchair people did not show up. And when something similar happened at LaGuardia, he schlepped luggage from the carousel to the cab. He was a trouper!
We are staying in a Marriot in midtown. Price have gone up for accommodation in New York since the last time we were here just a little over a year ago. Our room here is quite small. The best thing about it is the view from our window.
It doesn’t get much more New York than this.
No theater today. We’re too tired. We’ll check out some shows tomorrow.
Traveling Johns 