BOAC Junior Jet Club

Having taken two trips out-of-state this past month, I pulled out my BOAC Junior Jet Club Book to record the air (aero) flights in the log. Getting ready for this month's cross-country flight as the first leg of our big trip to Latin America made me leaf through the log pages to view "My BOAC Hours and Mileage."

While I can't say I've kept up the actual mileage or hours, I have diligently recorded my airplane trips since I received the log book on a BOAC flight "from London to Washington 26 Aug 1970." I was flying with my mom back from a trip to Poland where my uncle, aunt, and cousins lived when he was U.S. consul in Poznan. (See how one memory begets another: I believe you will find Vince Lombardi died not long after that flight because I remember I was crushed upon hearing of the Coach's cancer when we were abroad that summer.)

Those were the days of air travel - the lovely slim hardbound Junior Jet Club Book came in a sturdy envelope ("this envelope will be useful for protecting your log book"; indeed it has, as both log book and envelope are in excellent condition). The envelope instructs: "Dear Member, Welcome to the J.J.C.! . . . Inside this envelope you will find your J.J.C. Badge, Log Book and Enrolment Card . . complete the Enrolment card in full and hand it to the Stewardess." I must have - handed the enrollment card to the stewardess that is - and I must have lost the badge, but I still have the treasured log book.

Although my first entry was the trip home from London on BOAC (or Better On A Camel - weren't we clever?), my mom helped me recreate my first 11 years so I could enter all my flights beginning with my first one when I was one-month old in February 1959. The logbook pages were completely filled in by July 1986 so I began adding post-it notes in the back. I'm pretty sure I have recorded all my air travel to this point.

Without that record, I might not remember that I have flown to Shreveport, Houston, Charleston, Glasgow, Lakenheath (on a U.S. Navy DC-3), London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Warsaw, Newport, Chicago, Nassau, Frankfurt, San Diego, San Antonio, Boston, Montreal, Detroit, Toronto, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Milwaukee, Maui, Honolulu, Tampa, Martha's Vineyard, Columbus, San Luis Obispo, Cleveland, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland.

Pretty soon, I'll have another entry to record: just one week until Bennett and I fly to San Diego, city of my birth, where we make our way to the Port and set sail!

And I can't even say BOAC without the memories this poem evokes:

Back In The U.S.S.R.
(Lennon/McCartney)

Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.
Didn't get to bed last night
On the way the paper bag was on my knee
Man I had a dreadful flight
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boy
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I'm back in the U.S.S.R.
You don't know how lucky you are boy
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.
Back in the U.S.S.R.