Airborne Dreams

I found this cool video online about an Indian engineer who has made a part of the air travel experience possible for local poor children. It brought up such an upswell of emotions for me. I had my own airborne dreams as a child and I saw myself in the faces of those Indian children.
Growing up in a rural area in Jamaica, we didn't have a lot of luxuries and the idea of flying on an airplane seemed beyond the reach of most oridinary people. Everytime we heard an airplane we'd rush outside to stare at it, with the naked eye or with our "spyer"--a surveyors scope that served as a telescope. We'd take turns staring at the miniature craft, imagining what it must be like to be way up there, free and flying. That was one way we got closer to the flying experience.
Another closer encounter with airplanes was through our infrequent visits to the airport to send off or pick up lucky relatives or friends enroute to " foreign". All the relatives, and always one village elder along for the ride, would cram into a festive motorcade, a caravan of jalopies with luggage hanging off the roof, for the hour- long trip along the potentially treacherous winding roads to "Palisados" Once at the airport, the non-travellers trooped up to the waving gallery--an open air deck looking out to the runway. When my own mother left Jamaica in 1978, I remember pressing my face into the chainlink fence, waving frantically as she disappeared up the stairs into the mysterious magical vehicle that was Evergreen Airlines. I could only imagine was as luxurious interior she was encountering. I was desperately sad but there was status to be gained from having a relative who had been on a plane and a so close a relative living abroad. Four years later it was my turn to take that ride. Funny I hardly remember the experience as it was so sad to be leaving my native country forever. I remember though waving frantically from the stairs to the people on the waving gallery--those whom I knew and others I didn't--it's like the grand marshall in a parade--you don't discriminate with the wave.
Nowadays air travel has become more of a bother than the marvel that it truly is. But every now and then, mid flight I catch myself thinking of what a wondrous thing it is for us earthbound creatures to be way up here. And sometimes I get excited by the cute little silverware and plates and the kitschy goodness that is inflight service (yes quite rare these days).