1972, 8 years old, ORD-JFK-FCO out, ATH-YUL-ORD back.

Going east: We were supposed to fly ORD-FCO on Alitalia but there was an airline strike, so at 4am my mom was on the phone with the travel agent getting rebooked. We fly to JFK, wander around for four hours, and get on the IAD-like bus thingie to take us to our plane. I didn't catch what was happening and asked my mom "this plane isn't as nice as the last one - why can't we all sit down?" I still remember waking up over Ireland as the sun came up.

Going west: my mom got a case of food poisoning and we left two days early. Her cousin was a TA, and got us a comped upgrade to F on Olympic. Well, we get to the airport, and my dad (still a Greek citizen at the time) gets detained by immigration. Turns out somebody else with his name was wanted for draft evasion, and it took about two hours for him to convince them that it wasn't him..... Flight was full, so I didn't have a seat until YUL! A lap-8-year-old! I sat on the floor behind my parents for a while, and on one of the jump seats for a while. Then we got to YUL and we were the only ones continuing in F to ORD. Don't recall the plane type, but it was four rows of 2-2-2 in F with no upper deck.

After that, it was another six or seven years until I flew again, in a group of 20 kids in the center of an DL L-1011 on ORD-ATL.