In this video, I spoke with my great and sadly late friend Steve Sherman and we talked about a trip we made to New York in late June of 1970. There was some confusion about the flight that got us there and, yes, I know it really doesn't matter. Didn't matter then, doesn't matter now, But I'm going to tell it anyway. Feel free to skip on to the next item here or click onward to some other website. You won't hurt my feelings.
Back then, there was this thing called "student stand-by" and I'm not sure you even had to be a student to stand-by. These were cheap tickets that didn't guarantee you a seat on any particular flight; just that if there was space on a flight, they'd put you on it and if there wasn't, you'd wait for the next flight to that destination and maybe the flight after that and maybe the flight after that and so on. Eventually, they'd get you there…I suppose. In the meantime, any luggage you checked would go on the first flight for which you were standing-by even though you might not be on that plane.
At the time, the big thing in aviation was the new, massive 747 airplanes that had recently been introduced and everyone wanted to fly on one. I don't recall who told us but we went to the airport that day with the knowledge that there probably wouldn't be two seats open on a certain New York flight that was on a 747 but there'd be plenty on the next New York flight (not a 747) an hour or so later. That was how it worked out for us.
Flying on a 747 was a huge deal at the time and there was one very conspicuous, hard-to-ignore gent who had genuine tickets (not stand-by) for himself, his wife, his daughter and the family dog. We referred to the gentleman as "C.B." because he was taking 8mm home movies of their trip with the seriousness of the legendary director Cecil B. DeMille staging a massive crowd scene in a Biblical Epic. He had apparently already filmed the dog being "checked in" in one of those doggie-travel carriers along with their luggage.
Now, he was at the gate with his wife and daughter, filming them walking up to the counter, showing their tickets and receiving their boarding passes. Something about it wasn't right so he had them do it again. And again. And again. He was ordering other travelers to wait until he got the shot he wanted. Then he filmed his ladies walking over to a newsstand and buying some magazines and candy bars…again, in multiple takes. Then there were shots of them sitting down in the waiting room to await the call to board.
This all took a while, especially because he had to keep opening the camera. 8mm cameras used reels of film that could only hold four minutes of material — and after two, you had to stop, open the camera and flip the film over. Then after two more minutes of filming, you had to put in a new reel. And every time you opened the camera, you had to find a spot to do it where no light would get in, which in his case meant throwing his coat over the camera and then flipping or changing the film by sheer touch. That, as I well knew from shooting my own 8mm flicks, could take a while, especially when you were "on location."
You kids today with your cell phones…you don't know how good you have it.
At some point, they asked all passengers holding boarding passes to get on the plane. This did not apply to Steve and myself. We had no boarding passes and already knew we were waiting (hopefully) for the next flight. This also did not apparently apply to C.B. and his family. He was too busy making his little silent film masterpiece to pay attention to multiple announcements.
Finally, there came a moment when he was at one of the big windows, filming the majestic 747 aircraft as it taxied away from the gate and headed for the runway from which it would take off…
…and it was a good hundred yards from the gate when it suddenly dawned on C.B. that he, his wife and his daughter were not on the plane. But his dog was.
He began yelling to stop the 747, bring it back, etc. They don't do that…or at least they don't do it when you're too dumb to board when they tell you. "My dog is on that plane," he kept hollering — and the hundred-or-so people waiting at the gate were all laughing and saying to one another, "How nice of that man to let his dog ride on the 747."
C.B. and his family wound up on the next flight to New York, which is the one Steve and I got on. We heard him explaining to its flight crew and to other passengers how he'd had seats on the 747. I still don't know what he expected anyone to do because of that.
Not much was heard from C.B. until we were a few hundred miles from New York, at which point he and his family gathered their belongings and came down the aisle like this was a bus and they were getting off at the next stop. The flight attendant — we called them stewardesses then — explained to them that they had to be in their seats and fastened-down during landing. He argued that he had to be the first one off because of his dog. He lost that argument and grudgingly led his spouse and kid back to their seats.
Then the pilot announced that due to congested skies, there was no runway open and we'd have to wait until they found one for us. So our plane circled Manhattan and the surrounding areas for an extra forty-five minutes. Personally, I think they did that just to torture C.B. He sure was loud complaining about it.
As we landed, we were asked to remain in our seats if we weren't making connecting flights so that passengers who were could exit the plane first. C.B. and Company were already in the aisles and he was yelling about his dog and announcing that no one — no one!!! — was getting off before he and his family did. Somehow, it all got settled, we all deplaned (to use that silly verb) and when Steve and I were down in the Baggage Claim area claiming our waiting baggage, we saw C.B. with his dog.
We resisted going over and asking the dog how he enjoyed riding on the 747. But then when we passed C.B. with our suitcases, I asked him, "How's the movie coming along?" He shook his head and said, "This is not the ending I planned for."
Anyway, Steve was wrong in the video when he said we flew there on a 747. Steve flew home on a 747. I didn't. I flew on normal-sized planes — first to Baltimore (for reasons that wouldn't interest you) and then the next day back home to Los Angeles. I'm not sure I ever did ride on a 747 but if I did, it was many years later. See? I told you this was a trivial posting.