Some people travel Europe by rail. We chose to travel by emotional roller coaster.

That was when I looked up from my mass-market Peanuts book and out the window at what I assumed was the great western desert outside of Los Angeles—the kind of place where kidnap victims were hauled out and left for dead before Ponch, Jim Rockford, or the boys from Adam-12 could find them.

This was everything TV had promised me California would be. Of course, we were in Kansas, but at five years old, I didn’t know the difference.

This brings me back to those early near visits to the airport. The ones in the parking lot with my family. And that brings me to the first ever air related, near fatality I witnessed.

I once met a woman in Los Angeles whose name escapes me now. It is driving me nuts. I have googled and googled and asked ChatGpt, and scoured the old movie subreddits and when I tell you who I met, and the story she told me, it’s going to drive you nuts too.