Several years ago, Aunt Omega and Uncle Howie traveled to visit their son, who lives overseas. Since they lived in western Kansas, about four hours from Denver, it made the most sense for them to travel across two states (and past six cities with commercial air service) to fly out of St Louis. They were probably inspired by what is now the main terminal, designed by Minoru Yamakasi to evoke images of the great railway stations of the time, and dedicated in 1956. It has been under construction ever since.

Even if they could have flown nonstop to their destination from St Louis at the time, they wouldn’t have. One was to savor the adventure of air travel one segment at a time, and two of those many segments involved multiple airports in Montréal.I don’t remember what airport(s) they connected at to get from St Louis to Montréal, but I’m sure it was somewhere in the U.S. or Canada. I know this, because they flew into Dorval, and at that time, only domestic and U.S. flights flew into Dorval, since renamed Trudaeu, and all Transatlantic flights (and Transatlantic flights only) flew out of Mirabel International Airport, Montréal’s airport of the future, which closed in 2004. (That whole sordid tale could be the subject of another blog post, which I will gladly leave to Montréallers to discuss, but it was 30 miles from the city, and Aéroports de Montréal’s maxim was, if you build an airport, ground transportation will follow.)

I recall nothing about their return journey, except for their arrival in St Louis. Their previously arranged ride was missing in action in the baggage claim area, so Uncle Howie asked Aunt Omega to wait with the luggage while he looked for their nephew. I’m sure his primary concern was not so much theft as it was a general fear that construction workers would have walled in the luggage.

Aunt Omega remarked that she had to wait 15 minutes, and in that time, she never saw anyone she knew. Several family members scoffed at that, my mother pointing out that Aunt Omega couldn’t realistically expect to see anyone she knew in an airport hundreds of miles from her home. In fact, my mom added that even though the Little Rock Airport wasn’t that far from her home, she wouldn’t expect to see anyone she knew there.

Of course, the next time my mom went to the Little Rock Airport, she did run into someone she knew. I doubt she told Aunt Omega. To further add to the irony, a few years later, I flew through the St Louis airport myself, making a connection, and ran into someone I knew. She wasn’t from St Louis either, but we were catching the same flight to Boston. Of course, the airport was under renovation at the time, where they had split the concourse down the middle and put temporary buildings that flanked it. It was to achieve an industrial-chic look-ma-no-ceilings look to the place. They hadn’t bothered with Jetways, either, and it was -20 degrees Fahrenheit.

I’ve since run into other out-of-towners in Berlin and New Orleans, all because of Aunt Omega and how we laughed at her.