Old Airlines: Saturday Soundtrack

On Thursday Basil Wenceslas and I went for a walk. It was warm enough for him to walk in a little stream and build a dam out of rocks. We saw some deer, bees buzzing around a hollow tree, some ground squirrels. At one point he got very excited and made me look up to see a contrail from a jet-liner. He loves them. As I was looking at it I thought, "I wish I was flying somewhere." I remembered some of the old Airlines: Eastern, Braniff, TWA, Western, and, of course, PanAm, and the era when flying was special, something glamorous. Of course, it isn't like that now. Thinking about tiny seats, security, long waits on the runways cured me of my desire to fly anywhere.

Sammy Cahn wrote a song about flying during that more elegant era. Billy May (Yes, the guy who wrote the theme for the Odd Couple T.V. show.) wrote this arrangement for Frank Sinatra. (Just so you know, that "In llamaland there's a one man band and he'll toot his flute for you" line, man, that's just just silly.)