First Travel Memories
Posted November 17th, 2009 by Alison Stein WellnerOne Saturday afternoon, when I was eight years old, I asked my mother for a few sheets of paper and a pen. She tore out a few sheets from the memo pad she used to write casual letters, and grabbed a Bic from the cup attached to the wall near the kitchen phone. I sat at the dining room table in our apartment, and wrote “First Time to Fly” in block letters. Then I underlined it, unsteadily but determinedly. 
The story I composed was fictional, but based almost exactly on my own first trip that involved an airplane – from New York to Orlando, to visit what was then called EPCOT Center, now just Epcot.
The park opened the year before, and as far as I was concerned, this was the most significant event the world had ever witnessed. I had gotten my hands on a book about new theme park, and I memorized it. The station that the kitchen radio was tuned to every morning ran a drawing for tickets to Epcot, and although we entered several times, we didn’t win.
At some point, Mom decided that we’d go anyway, just the two of us. We woke in the dark and caught a cab to La Guardia, and I danced down the aisle to our seats, singing under my breath, “I’m riding on an airplane”, stretching out “air” into four syllables. Out the window, New York City was a-twinkle against that amber night sky.
And then there was Florida, with for-real palm trees, and ocean water that wasn’t bracingly cold, and pools that were warm even when they weren’t heated. And then there was Epcot Center, and the World Showcase, which had buildings for different countries, and we pretended we were actually traveling from country to country. That was the best time I’d ever had, even though one thing frightened me. There was still a Soviet Union and a Berlin Wall and China was still really Communist, and inside China’s pavilion, there was a movie that showed the bicycle-clogged streets of Beijing, and everyone wearing drab khaki which seemed to blemd with smog. The colorlessness and the sameness repelled and fascinated. That’s what life is like when you’re not free, my mother said, in answer to my questions about why. That moment planted a seed of a lifetime’s interest in China, which first led me to select “Youth in Asia” as a topic for a Social Studies book report that year — the topic actually turned out to be “euthanasia” — but later more successfully shaped my reading and travels.
What I’ve just recounted are the moments from that trip that I find the most important now. But, as the title of my short story implies, what signified for my eight year old self was that first notch on my air transit belt. I attended the United Nations International School for early elementary school, and I was the only one in my class who had never been on an airplane, who had never left the country, in fact. This was only one of my differences with my fellow classmates, just one of the things that made me a mark. So my story focused on the flight. My heroine was excited. “She was going to go on an airplane. If you went on one before, it wasn’t exciting. But this was her FIRST time. “People won’t stare at me when I say I never go on an airplane,” Ken sang happily. “Bye bye stares!”
I discovered this story tucked into a book several years ago, and every now and then I unfold the two yellowing pages and read them. I think it’s funny that I gave my female protagonist a boy’s name — an homage to Nancy Drew’s best gal pal George. And I also find it a little sad. Out of all the wonderful experience on my first major journey, what inspired me to write was my delight at having gained a piece of social currency? It reminds me that I believed that amassing particular experiences, learning and saying the right combination of words, would help make me invincible against teasing. It took me a long time to learn that that wasn’t how the game works — the most important thing is to appear unbothered by it. A handy fiction, but one I never quite learned to master.
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November 18th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
This is a lovely post – and how cool that you still have the story. I completely understand the significance of going somewhere on an airplane. My first time was when I was nine and although I was terrified (I’ve always been afraid to fly) it also signified that we were going on a “real” trip – in my case to Italy from the East Coast of the U.S.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
My first time on an airplane — a real one rather than the Cessna belonging to my rather intoxicated grandfather — was when I was about 9, too. My older sister gave me her seat on the one her high school class was taking around the state. Shows you how often Montanans got out in those days! It was really wonderful, didn’t get on another one for 5 years.
Thanks for sharing such a great story with us! And it’s natural for kids to worry about what others think of them, as natural as it is for adults to lament the time we’ve wasted doing just that.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Gosh, Antonia, I want to hear the story of the Cessna with intoxicated grandpa! And thanks Mara — my cat spilled water all over the pages yesterday — they’re now a little more blurry! So I’m extra glad I photo’d them for this post.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I have only the tiniest memory of my first time flying, and it’s pretty, um, ignominious, because I stepped on the jetway and hurled my lunch upon the stewardesses shoes. I still hate to fly, though I love to be in new places with my whole being.
I sat next to a pilot on a flight to Chicago once and he told me about how, when they were kids, his mom used to put them in their best clothes to fly. He grew up with the romance of flight and he was wearing his wings while sitting next to me in coach. We both agreed that a lot of the magic had been lost.
I loved this essay. Thank you,
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
When I was five and six my mum and I lived in Bathurst, a small inland city about 3 hours drive west of Sydney, and my dad lived in Sydney. My mum and dad got tired of driving back and forth so sometimes my mum would put me on a flight to Sydney and my dad would meet me at the other end. I was a regular on East-West Airlines, which had tiny airlines making the short hop over the Blue Mountains. The ‘air hostesses’ (they were called that then) would mother me and often I got to go and sit in the co-pilot’s seat. I still love walking across tarmac to board a plane – it’s so much more romantic!