The Spirit of St. Louis

Within an hour, we were showered, dressed, and standing at the information desk at the airport. "My husband heard that a restaurant here serves a Sunday brunch," Jessica said to the elderly man behind the desk. "Can you tell us where it is?"

The man fell silent, then shook his head back and forth.

"You came to the airport to eat breakfast?"

I felt myself shrink.

"Brunch," I said. "An incredible brunch. At a restaurant with a great, expansive view of the runway."

"No, sir," he said. "There's nothing like that here."

"Nothing!?" I said. "There must be. She said, the woman … on the plane … she told me there was … it must not be here anymore."

"No, sir," he responded. "I've been here since the airport opened. Never been anything like that here."

I was dumbfounded. I looked at my wife and son like a man accused of some horrible wrongdoing. "She said this airport. I know it!"

"That's okay," Jessica said.

"Yeah, Dad," Sam consoled, "there's always the cinnamon roll place."

We wandered around for awhile, searching for what didn't exist. Eventually, we ended up in a chain restaurant with a fair view of a runway. I looked out at the planes and remembered going to the airport as a kid with my mom to wave goodbye to my dad on one of his occasional business trips. We'd sit on a wide windowsill and wave at the plane, as it sat there, then as it pulled away, and finally as it roared up into the sky.

I wondered if my dad could see me.

For years, I kept a scrapbook of airplanes. Page after thick, beige-colored page displayed a different airplane, each one cut from a magazine or newspaper. This one a fighter jet, that one the The Spirit of St. Louis. The scrapbook was a paean to a dream: I would grow up to be an airplane pilot.