The Second Best Toy Return Story
Pink Teddy takes the cake and me, a novelist, read every word. So many twists, turns, and then the perfect ending.
Here's a historical one for you.
1950. I am a child flying on a Boeing Double-Decker Stratacruiser from Honolulu to Tokyo. At night the seats are made up into bunks with my parents below and me on top--like a train compartment.
Shortly after we arrived at the Hotel Tokyo it was bedtime again. I needed my Blue Velvet Elephant to sleep (made by my mommy). He was missing! My mother realized, with horror, that he had been left in the bunk. She immediately called Pan Am.
"So sorry, but that plane has already departed for Rome. It won't return for a week" was the reply.
We went to the Takashimaya department store the next day to find an elephant. This was a good plan because they actually had a little zoo on the roof with a real elephant. The replacement did not satisfy.
A week later I was getting ready for bed and there came a knock on the hotel room door.
It was a Pan Am captain in full uniform. "I believe I have something for your daughter," he said. (During the flight, I had been permitted to sit on his lap and "fly the plane." I had remarked that it wasn't heavy at all.)
And good to know there other reunions happening!
(As a side note, last month I left an iPad on Jet Blue--first thing I've lost since Ellie--and they found, returned Fed X, NO CHARGE. I did send a gift to the man who took care of it. The funny thing was that his name is Ezra and one of my books has Ezra in the title.)
So what's a Golden Ticket and how can we send one to this amazing guy?