Mercoledi Musicale - Melina Merkouri

Early March of 1967 I was in my first year with Air Canada (my employer for the next 33 years) at Toronto Airport. A clerk in the Operations tower, I worked in a fishbowl perched at the end of a boarding finger reached by a metal spiral staircase. In those days people walked outside to board an airplane, any airplane not just the small propeller ones. One windy afternoon I had struggled down the stairs with an armload of flight plans heading for the terminal. A charter flight from Philadelphia, carrying Melina Merkouri and the cast of the Broadway-bound Illya Darling, was deplaning as I walked towards the terminal.

I don't recall how it happened but I tripped and 25 flight plans and I fell to the ground in an undignified pile. As I scrambled to collect the plans and my dignity a smoky accented voice asked: Are you okay, darling? Here let me help you. And a ring-laddened hand was proffered. I looked up into the most fascinating face I had ever seen in my young life. The halo of Carmel-coloured hair and a smile the like of which I have never seen again almost blinded me to an incredible pair of sparkling, laughing eyes. It was Merkouri. In a complete daze I know I must have turned a bright red as she helped me up, dusted me off and kissed my cheek. At that moment I was head over heels in love.

In fond memory of that moment, which I had forgotten about until a few days ago, and in celebration of our departure today for Athens here is the devine Melina singing Children Of Piraeus in Never On Sunday the movie that inspired Illya Darling.

Σας αγαπώ, Melina.

12 marzo - San Massimiliano

Would That I Could Have

I spent 33 years of my life working with Air Canada - 15 of them at an airport either toiling on or training people for the front lines.

Fifteen years of:

• having my birthright called into question because the plane would not/could not take off in pea-soup fog or a blinding snowstorm
• having my IQ level publicly and loudly downgraded to a figure in the minus column because seven pieces of carry-on luggage had been allowed at every other airport in the world
• having my sexuality thrown in my face because some business man couldn't get a window seat (Yes, he called me a "faggot"; and the only response I could think of was: You'd be a better judge of that than I sir. Which he was too stupid to realize meant: Takes one to know one!)

I only wish at one point I had had the guts to follow the example of these intrepid canines at Bangkok International Airport. No doubt it would have got me fired but damn there were days when it would have been worth it.