Los Angeles Airport in the early morning was like a vast concrete temple. The transfer to a flight for Memphis meant a few hours wait at the Airport, but not enough time to visit the city. By following various signs, I reached a point from which coaches would leave "every ten minutes” for the domestic terminal.
"What a fine thing American efficiency is!" I thought. "It is easy to sneer at it, but how refreshing after the delays and evasions of the Orient."
Forty minutes later, still without a coach, I had modified my thinking somewhat. When eventually transferred to the domestic departure-lounge, I wanted first to park the bag of spirits which was then depressing my own. Admirably, next to the safe-deposit lockers were some machines offering coins for dollars, and suggesting the reinsertion of any rejected bill since the machine may on occasion, throw out perfectly good notes. After all six of my one-dollar bills had been several times ejected, I appealed to a small boy, who put them through again, still unsuccessfully. Then he kicked the machine twice, shook it violently and announced that it was out of order, which now seemed most probable. I finally got change by the old-fashioned method of asking the friendly cashier at the coffeeshop, who produced eight shining new quarters.
One of these enabled me to leave my bottles in a safe-deposit. Next, I applied myself to the task of obtaining postage-stamps for some cards I had written. I found a stamp-machine and noted with a sense of outrage that someone was making a profit on the stamps since they came packaged at a price higher than their face value. To an Englishman there is something almost sacred about stamps, but a little reflection convinced me that this was an irrational view. My next feeling was one of regret that I had not done Calculus and could not workout the cheapest permutation which would make up the eleven-cent postage on each of four cards.
The machines offered:
For 50 cents, 1-30c and 2-5c stamps (value 40 cents)
For 25 cents, 1-15c and 1-5c stamp (value 20 cents) or
1-11c and 1-8c stamp (value 19 cents) or
3-6c and 2-1c stamps (value 20 cents) or
2-8c and 1-4c stamp (value 20 cents) or
5-4c stamps (value 20 cents) or
4-5c stamps (value 20 cents)
It seemed to me that I would spend more than necessary and end up with a lot of unwanted stamps. At a venture, I put in a quarter and pulled the lever to get one 11c and one 8c stamp, even though at 19c this was the worst value. They arrived in a little cardboard folder, saying on the one side: "Sanitarily Packaged -Save a Trip to Post Office" and on the other side: "You look on the bright side of most things and have a thankful heart." The next folder said: "There will be much good fortune and you will be appreciative and sharing," which seemed ambiguous as well as slightly menacing.
After posting the cards, I ran the gauntlet of machines offering cigarettes, machines offering food and drink, machines offering to copy documents, or shine shoes, or provide change - to the haven of the cafe where I could relax with a few of my own species.
In the U.S.A., the captain is inadequate if he can merely fly an aeroplane; he is expected to be an entertainer too, and over the P.A. system came a stream of witticisms such as:
"Our flight should take an hour-and-a-half in good round figures - and talking of good round figures, your hostesses today are…….”
"We are a fresh crew- I use the word loosely."
"We have gone into a slightly elliptical circling orbit as we do not yet have ground-clearance to land. I felt I should mention this, in case you thought we were hopelessly lost."
I doubt whether this is good Public Relations; we like to think of the Captain as a serious, dedicated man, seated with eyes constantly on the instruments, except for swift glances to port and starboard to verify that both wings are intact and that none of the engines is on fire. A flippant Captain gave me the same sense of unease as when, a few weeks later, in a bar outside Toronto Airport, my companion said: "Look, there's the crew of your 'plane getting 'tanked up"."' It was a very dark bar I had jocularly been offered a 'seeing-eye' dog on entering and across the gloom I could just see peaked caps. But it was a slander; they were Air Force officers.
My captains should be humourless men, addicted to nothing stronger than weak tea. The hostesses can provide glamour, and the passengers can drink the hard liquor. The captain is there to fly the aeroplane - and let us have no levity, please.
That evening I dined at a hotel overlooking the Mississippi at Memphis, surrounded by rich Southern accents; and surely, as the sun disappeared and darkness stole across the river, the raft of Tom and Huck emerged from the rushy margins and edged into the mainstream.
Later, my host drove some distance to my motel, pulling up in front of one of a number of tumbledown, wooden shacks in a clearing. This was his regular joke and I "fell" for it. With dismay in my heart, I uttered a few polite insincerities about the pleasant surroundings, and he then drove on to the real motel, a few miles away, which was as good as I found anywhere.