365 Memories

Sure, you could play "Twenty Questions" or the "Grocery Store" game, but when your father works for an airline, there's another fun way to pass the time and test your memory skills: take the Airport Code Quiz (answers at the end of the post, but no peeking allowed)! What cities are served by the following airports, identified here only by their codes? ATH , BKK , BNA , BWI , CAI, CCS , CDG , CEQ , DFW , DTW , DUB, EWR , FCO , GIG, HND , HNL , LAX, LGW , LIM , MCO , MOW, MUC , ORD , ORK , ORY , PTY , SAN, TLS , YYZ , ZRH I don't know when this first became a game we played, or why we ever stopped playing it, because it really was a lot of fun, and sometimes quite challenging. I just remember that I loved to be tested on the arcane knowledge of IATA Location Identifier codes—those three-letter codes that describe the world's airports, large and small, and that (in theory, anyway) ensure that your luggage arrives at its proper destination. I loved the oddn...

I cannot call it the MetLife Building, not to save my life. It was, and to me it still is and always will be, the Pan Am Building. Going up the escalators from the main hall of Grand Central Station, you'd reach the top, circulate through the revolving doors, pass a newsstand on your right, the bank of elevators, and eventually you'd reach Zum Zum, the breakfast (or lunch) counter run with efficiency by Edda, the middle-aged Polish waitress who always had a smile for her regulars. For a time, that included my father, and me. We'd perch on the stools and order eggs (him), or French toast (me), and we'd talk to each other and to Edda. I remember her as being short, a little stocky but not plump, and as having short blond hair. I could be wrong. I'm sure she had an accent, but I can no longer hear it in my mind. At Christmastime, she would purchase silk-thread ornaments (the basic globes you could buy in sets in a drug store and that came in bright solid colors of red,...