Going, Coming Home, 1970

(August 18 to September 14)

We joined the UEAC (United European American Club), and bought round trip tickets from Los Angeles to Frankfurt for $283 each. Our plane, a DC 8, was supposed to leave at 1:00 PM, but when we arrived at the airport we were told it would be delayed until 4:30. At 2:00 PM we were told we will be delayed until 1:00 AM tomorrow. Finally they took us to a hotel, and at dinner they served a nice buffet, and we were told it would be 4:00 AM before we could leave. At 12:45 AM they called our room and said we would not leave until 8:00 AM. From our hotel we could almost see the Douglas Aircraft plant where the plane was built, but the spare part they needed was back east somewhere!

They fed us a good breakfast, and the plane finally left at 8:45 AM. The flight to Bangor, Maine took the scheduled 5 1/2 hours, and after refueling we flew for 7 hours to Frankfurt.

Arrangements had been made for our new Volkswagen camper-van to be delivered when we arrived at the airport. As we tried to find our luggage, we heard our name (after a fashion) being paged over the airport speaker system, then saw a young lady with a handful of papers. She “guessed” we were the people who were to pick up the VW, so shoved the papers toward us and disappeared. We signed nothing, she asked no questions, she assumed we were the right people. Along with the vehicle papers we found a set of keys and a parking receipt, so after a few minutes search we were ready to travel.

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While we were in Europe a couple of airplanes were hijacked to a Mid-Eastern desert, and blown up. A few days later, when we arrived at the airport for our flight home, we were introduced to our first taste of airport security.

No one had yet invented metal-detectors and baggage X-ray equipment, but furniture had been arranged in such a manner that passengers were directed into small groups. Men and women were sent into separate rooms to be thoroughly, physically frisked. Our luggage was placed on the tarmac near the airplane, then we had to identify it and place it in containers. We were herded directly on the plane to make sure that if we had packed a bomb, we had to ride the plane.

When we arrived in Bangor, Maine, they refueled the plane, unloaded the baggage, and we passed through customs and passport control. When the custom inspector saw our sleeping bags, he was more interested in hearing about our trip in Europe, than he was in inspecting our luggage.

When we arrived in Los Angeles, we collected our luggage and left, no inspection was needed.