England swings like a pendulum do
Roger Miller, 1965
Bobbies on bicycles, two by two
Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben
The rosy-red cheeks of the little children
I’m on board an Airbus A350 from New York-JFK to London-Heathrow. Last night, my home was the TWA Hotel at JFK. The hotel’s public spaces are in the restored and reassigned 1962 TWA Flight Center.
I wandered through soaring, flowing spaces, admiring how architect Eero Saarinen understood how to leave so much out yet leave us with more.
I sipped a beer in the sunken lounge, on Saarinen-designed furniture in a Saarinen-designed space.
A 1950’s-era Lockheed Constellation turbo-prop was parked on the apron in front. The clacking of the oval-framed, split-flap display filled me with nostalgia for the departure boards of train stations and airports from another time. Piped-in 60’s-era music fueled the moment.
My mind drifted to the Second Coming of the Beatles to America in 1965. Back then, jet travel seemed glamorous and unattainable for the likes of me. The Fab Four landed at JFK on a TWA (Trans-World Airways) jet.
Hyperventilating girls were crushed into the same sunken lounge where I was sitting. Eyes were fixed on the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, hoping for a glimpse of their heros. They would be disappointed.
In the summer of 1965, I really didn’t care about this pop-culture moment. I was almost 14 at the time, nerdy, and probably a bit jealous the working class boys from Liverpool got to fly on a jet. Intercontinental jet travel was financially out of reach for most families at that time.
Besides, the thought of hundreds of perspiring girls in mini-skirts did nothing for a gay teen.
The authorities decided the situation was too dangerous. The plane parked some distance away, hidden from the hysterical crowd. After a tarmac photo opportunity for the waiting press, the Fab Four were driven directly to their hotel.
The TWA terminal had been open for just three years, but it was already showing its age. Designed for turbo-props for travelers in the so-called golden age of flying, it was ill-suited for larger jets. The advent of the jumbo jet at the end of the 60’s opened up travel to the masses, but made Saarinen’s masterpiece increasingly impractical.
14 years after the Beatles’ 1965 visit, I moved to the US. An American kid asked me what it was like living in Britain during the Beatles era. I struggled and failed to find anything profound to say with conviction. If only he’d asked me about the first time I flew in a plane. To this day, I remember so much about my first flight in 1972 from London Luton to Berlin Tegal.
Today I’m on a flying bus with an e-ticket purchased with Delta SkyMiles. We live in amazing times.