Author’s note:  In creating this blog, my daughter cited how these posts used to find their way into co-worker’s emails and my daughter’s backpack. How true that still is.  My wife found this email printed out and stashed with a bunch of old greeting cards.  It was written on 12/16/2003 and emailed to a long list of co-workers, friends and family. To give you an idea of how long ago this was, my daughter did not yet have a backpack.

There are 2 observations that I when I finished reading this note.

Observation #1: How much of this crap have I actually written?  Archaeologists will someday be foraging through the ruins of our prior civilization only to discover more of these stories (they’ll probably look through my daughter’s backpack, which I’m pretty sure has not been emptied out).  They will form an impression of our society. I guess I should be more responsible for what I say. (Or not. But it sounds important, right? I wouldn’t count on any sense of responsibility from a guy named Larry.)

Observation #2: Those were the “good old days.”  In the nearly 21 years since I wrote this article, it is amazing to see all the changes that have happened to airline travel:  Fees, More fees, Still More Fees, and Spirit Airlines (which is used by the CIA as a torture mechanism outlawed by the Geneva Convention). Feel free to suggest more differences by submitting your comments.

As it actually appears in the email:

In Honor of the Wright Brother’s 100^th Anniversary (12/16/2003).

December 17, 1903:  On the wind-swept plains (or planes, as they were spelled back then) of Kitty Hawk, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright (Motto: 2 Wrights don’t make it Rong) usher the world into a new era of manned flight.

OK, you already knew that.

What you probably didn’t know is that the entire Wright family had an illustrious history of aviation invention, much of it lesser known.

October 29, 1906:  As they continue to improve and build their aircraft, Orville and Wilbur begin to bicker over who should pilot the aircraft. In order to restore order to the escalating feud, their sister Sara creates a reservation and ticketing system that provides an orderly set of rules and procedures for the two brothers. Instantly, their flights become delayed and/or cancelled, particularly in winter months. Fortunately, the same method of booking flights is in use today, providing travelers with an easy to understand and stable pricing system.

July 3, 1910:  As word spread throughout America and the world, people began to arrive in Kitty Hawk to see the impressive invention. Strapped for cash, Orville’s son Nathan Wright begins to charge tourists for short flights around the airfield; however, by the rudimentary design of the aircraft there is no place for the passengers to place their belongings.

In answer to this problem, Wilbur’s daughter Nelly Wright places a basket for each passenger on the upper wing of the biplane aircraft, naming the invention the “overhead bin”. Within each basket, passengers are allowed to place exactly 2 items. Thus began the practice of passengers attempting to cram all of their worldly possessions into a box the size of a small shoebox, and arguing that it was the darned airline that wouldn’t allow them to bring their grandmother’s china collection on an aircraft without any damage due to “shifting during flight”.

July 20, 1910:  After the overwhelming success of the overhead bin, passengers craved for more space for their belongings. A solution was quickly devised where a large storage container was built into the underside of the plane. Passengers would provide their luggage to the agents who would randomly assign a 3 letter code such as “RLO” and tell the passenger that this was their final destination. Since there were no actual airports at this time, the baggage handlers simply put the luggage onto any given plane as they saw fit. Thus, the passenger may be heading to Duluth while his luggage would be routed to a small Pacific Island where the local natives would assume the items were gifts from gods and would perform ritual sacrifices in their (the gods, not the locals) honor.

February 19, 1920:  Now that aircraft design had provided a solid fuselage encompassing each passenger, more and more people were fit into each plane. However, with no seating available on these aircraft, passengers were uncomfortable and often cramped. Orville’s nephew “Shorty” Wright, a carpenter by trade, began designing a seat system that could be installed on the aircraft. He manufactured seats according to a design that fit his diminutive dimensions perfectly and were patented for all future aircraft use, only to find that, once installed in the aircraft the passengers often had no head or leg room and were forced to sit in uncomfortable stooped conditions for long periods of time. Having realized their design flaw, Shorty promised to produce a new design, which is eagerly anticipated any day now.

April 1, 1940:  By this time, aircraft design had become sufficiently large and comfortable that long distance flights were a popular way to see the country. However, with the long distances and hours came the need for increased passenger comfort. On one such flight, grand-nephew Nemo Wright decided to put his bag of peanuts on a rolling cart, prompted only by the desire to benefit his fellow passengers by parceling out small amounts of the peanuts to the other passengers, waking them if necessary to ensure that they were well fed. He decided to call this the “inflight snack.”

Upon hearing of this innovation, his brother Birdseye Wright came up with the next major invention patented to the Wright clan. At the time, Birdseye was experimenting with agricultural products, specifically finding ways to package them in smaller sizes in order to allow for greater distribution of food products. He realized that the use of his genetically altered miniature chickens vegetables and other products was a perfect size to put on an airline as a multi-course, delicious “meal”.

August 12, 1955:  At this point, most important airline innovations had been discovered, many of which are still in practice today. The last great innovation came from the great-great grandchildren of Orville and Wilbur. The twins, named David and Victor Davidson (or DVD for short) had become enamored with the new medium called television. Their design was for an inflight “movie” to be selected by the airlines based on picking only the best in popular movies and entertainment. These would be piped through an onboard screen that was 2 inches square and mounted behind a bulkhead, and passengers would pay a nominal fee such as $25 for a pair of headsets that would produce sound not unlike a garbage disposal. The first movie was shown on a flight on August 13, from Chicago to  Detroit, and was “Glitter” starring then unknown actress Maria Carey.