As the skies below me cloud up and we cruise at a leisurely speed nearly six kilometres above the ground, I think back to the days when conversations couldn’t be heard over the loud drone of the piston engines on the old DeHavilland single engine Otter.
Times have changed greatly as today on the Dash 8 modern aircraft we cruise three times faster and with five times as many passengers. Back in the day air travel was literally flying by the seat of your pants and losing sight of the ground was a good way of losing your way to your destination.
I recall the times while working at the airport waiting for the rugged DC-3 to come in with the weekly groceries from Timmins. The arrival of the plane was the only real entertainment we had. Some days, as the plane flew by to land, we would run to the landing strip just to be nosey and sometimes offer to help offload the plane for free! The only other real fun was to watch the weekly movie reels that had arrived on the plane. Sometimes, it was the next adventure of Buck Rogers or Tarzan.
Most films were black and white, but the latest long movies were in colour, which pleased us to no end. Zorro would put up a good sabre fight while Gene Autry was our favourite cowboy. Our most cherished actor was of course Jerry Lewis, who came up with quite a few zany flicks. When the movie ended, our laughter continued as we copied his crazy antics.
There were times when romance was highlighted with Elizabeth Taylor and one of her many suitors. The young girls turned their heads or peeked through their fingers as they covered their eyes. We boys would either say “yuck” or watch with wonder to see if anything else would happen.
It turned out that a lot of faces would get slapped if the kiss was unwanted so that made us wary of making the same foolish moves as the leading man. We learned how to avoid such disasters at an early age, noting instead that chivalry was the way to win a girl’s heart. As far as asking for her hand, well that was for grownups and who wanted to get married at 10 years old anyways?
At any rate, we preferred action movies and comedies. As I grew to become a strapping teenager going to school in the south, the movie theatres were my new passion. Once, I had a yearning to ask a pretty girl out on a date to see a movie – popcorn on me, of course.
“You decide which movie you want to see,” I proudly declared, and I heard her say the word star. I happily stammered back, “Yes! I’ll take you.” I couldn’t believe she wanted to see Star Wars.
Finally, as Tuesday rolled around, I got on the bus for the half-hour ride to Ottawa and met her outside the cinema. After it was over and we went outside, I noticed that she wasn’t happy. I asked her what was wrong, and she cried out that it was the worst film she’d ever seen.
I stuttered that I thought she wanted to see that one. “No!” she exploded. “I wanted to see A Star Is Born!”
Oops. It wasn’t action she wanted; it was romance. I was so shocked I couldn’t say much as I knew that I wouldn’t get another date. To this day, I’ve never seen that movie as I’m sure that I wouldn’t enjoy it.
Today, I watch only the short action parts of movies on social media and when I can I try to watch the whole downloaded movie. Not a single romantic movie has appeared on my device screen.