I was cured of my fear of flying by not having any choice in the matter, if I wanted to make the trip I had scheduled.
My first flight was in the early spring of 1984. I was still living in my home town of Lancaster at the time, and was going to visit an old roommate in Boston for the weekend. I was flying out of Harrisburg, Pa., and because I was nervous, I had booked a direct flight from Harrisburg to Boston on a "big" plane.''
Came the day of my trip, guess what? Mechanical problems, they couldn't get the "big" plane started!
Somehow, I didn't freak out--not even when I was informed that in place of the "big" plane, we were being put on board a "little" (commuter) flight to Newark, where we would transfer to another flight to Boston.
Lovely. Just the situation I had tried to avoid in making my travel arrangements.
Then we got up in the air in that "little" plane, and I looked out the window at the whole world spread out below me "in miniature," like on a map, and I absolutely loved it! It was like magic! I was hooked!
And please bear in mind that I am otherwise the biggest friggin' physical coward on the face of the earth! Put me on top of a three-foot step ladder and my legs turn to limp spaghetti!
Got no problems standing on the balcony of the 30th-floor condo, but a three-foot step ladder? Forget it!
I think I wasn't frightened because of the "unreality" of that experience, looking down at "the whole world in miniature." Since that first flight, I've flown many times on the commuter hop from Boston to Provincetown, and once, in 1985, I even got to ride the co-pilot's seat for a small-plane flight from St. Croix, U.S.V.I., to San Juan.
So I love to fly, but dealing with airports, however, having to show up two friggin' hours before my flight. ...
(Sorry, David. I know it ain't your fault.
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