A pilot came out of the terminal and headed over to me. "Mister Buckman?"
I dropped the suitcases. "That's me!"
"Okay, excellent! I'll be your pilot. I'm Jim Johnson." He was in his mid-thirties. Lloyd had said he was ex-Air Force. I suspected that he was a flyboy who had gotten to the point in his career where he was spending more time flying a desk and less time flying a fast jet, and it wasn't fun anymore. It was time to get out and either fly 747s for Continental as a junior pilot, or fly fast and nimble little private jets for a charter company. I bet Jim had chosen option 2.
I stuck my hand out. "Carl Buckman, and this is my wife, Marilyn."
He turned to her and shook Marilyn's hand. "Pleased to meet you. Just checking, but you're going to Eleuthera in the Bahamas, right?"
Marilyn looked confused and turned to me. "I thought you said this was in a place called Governors Harbor?"
"That's the airport on Eleuthera.", I answered, and she looked relieved. To Johnson, I said, "Yes, that's right."
"Just checking. I'd hate to get there and find you wanted to go skiing in Canada or something.", he said with a smile.
I laughed. "Has that ever happened?"
He rolled his eyes. "Not to me, but it happened to a friend of mine."
"Well, you got it right this time."
"Then let me give you a hand with that. Do you have your passports handy?"
Marilyn immediately began pawing through her handbag, but I simply reached into my back pocket and pulled them out. We had Marilyn's, from when she had changed her name after we got married, and my new blue one, from when I had surrendered my red military version to get my new civilian model. "How does that work, anyway?", I asked.
"A Bahamian customs officer will be at the airport. You have to stay on the plane until he clears you."
Okay, that made sense. But later? "What happens when we fly home? Are there customs officers in Utica?" That just didn't sound right. There couldn't be customs people at every Podunk airport in America.
He shook his head. "No. For one thing, we'll need to tank up on the way back. We can't make it there in one hop. So we'll fly to someplace in between with customs officers, and then go through customs. Once we're inside the US, we can refuel and fly where we want to go without problems. At that point it becomes an internal flight and nobody cares."
"So we fly to Miami and go through customs there."
"Probably north of there. I'm thinking Charlotte. "It's big enough to have a customs office but not too big to get lost in the shuffle, and it's about halfway to Utica. Why in the world do you want to fly to Utica, anyway?"
"Our baby is staying with Marilyn's family. Otherwise, I'm with you!" Marilyn stuck her tongue out at both of us, which simply made me laugh.
Jim simply smiled and grabbed a couple of the suitcases. I followed him over to the jet and passed him the bags as he loaded them into the jet. Afterwards, we stepped back and Johnson allowed us to climb up the stairs into the plane. As a gentleman, I allowed Marilyn to go first. The fact that I liked watching her legs as she climbed up the stairs ahead of me was simply coincidental!
And it got me to thinking.
I stood there hunched over (it was surprisingly short, between four and five feet high) in the front of the cabin looking around as the pilot climbed on board. He was followed on board by a good looking blonde who was wearing what looked like a stewardess outfit. I looked at her curiously. "These little babies need a stewardess?"
"Flight attendant!", she answered with a smile. "No, not really. I'm Jim's wife. I occasionally fly with him."
"Hi. Carl and Marilyn Buckman."
"Samantha Johnson. Let's get you buckled in and airborne. Once we're at altitude, we have a bottle of champagne courtesy of your travel agent."
"Well, that's nice. I'm sure I'm paying for it somehow, but it's still nice.", I replied with a smile. Then I glanced back to where Marilyn was sitting. There were six seats on the jet. three rows of two seats. Marilyn was sitting in the first row, with her legs crossed and showing a lot of very nice thigh. I turned back to Samantha and lowered my voice. "Let me ask you, where do you sit during the flight?"
Samantha looked past me towards Marilyn, and then gave me a small smile. "I think I can ride up front with Jim. We actually have a partition door between the cabin and the cockpit."
I returned the smile. "That would be very nice." I turned and moved into the cabin. Marilyn was sitting on the right side of the jet and looking out the window. I sat down in the seat across the aisle from her.
Marilyn turned to me and said, "I can't believe this!"
"I have to admit, it definitely beats the last airline I flew routinely."
"Hmm?"
"You know, me and a hundred of my closest friends, and we didn't even have to worry about whether we were going to crash when we landed! We weren't going to be on board then!"
"Yeah, but I bet you didn't have seats this comfortable."
"And we didn't have a flight attendant serving champagne, either."
"Champagne! It's the middle of the morning!"
"It must be five o'clock somewhere. If you don't want any..."
Marilyn interrupted me. "I didn't say that!"
At that point Jim Johnson came out of the cockpit and headed to the door, and pulled the folding stairs up into the plane, and then pulled the top portion of the door down and closed us up. "Let's buckle up, folks."
He went back into the cockpit and Samantha came back to do the flight attendant bit. "Do I need to tell you how to buckle your seat belts?"
"I think we have it covered."
Just then a whine started from outside as the engines began starting up. Samantha moved into a fold-down jump seat next to the cockpit door. I looked over at Marilyn. "In the event of an emergency, do you know the proper crash position?"
"What?"
"You bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass good-bye!"
"Shut up! You can't say things like that on an airplane."
I laughed at her. "What? I'm going to upset all the other passengers?" That simply got me a raspberry.
I faced forward and considered my seat. The seats on this bird were really nice and luxurious leather, big, wide, and soft. They must have been made from a very happy cow. The cabin wasn't all that big, but it still beat the back end of a 727, with a screaming four year old on one side and a sweaty overweight Shriner on the other side, coming off a hangover and reaching for an airsick bag.
Of course, not all 727s are like that. In my first go-around I had flown private jets several times. Most of the times were with various trailer suppliers, but back before that, I had been with ITT for a time and had flown a few times on one of their corporate jets. This was back when ITT was one of the largest conglomerates, and had a fleet of jets. Their pride and joy was a 727 rigged up as a corporate jet. Leaving aside the super-plush seats and ample legroom, it had meeting rooms and a bedroom. On entering the plane, we had been greeted by a steward who told us that as soon as we got to altitude he would take our drink orders and ask how we wanted our steaks cooked. It was a bunch of us flying back from Seattle to New York on a red-eye, and they got into a high stakes poker game in the back. We had been scabbing in a pulp mill on strike, living in the mill, and making about three times our normal pay with nowhere to spend it. There were thousands riding on that table, which is way more than I felt comfortable with.