Grab your crocheted granny-square afghan, set a spell in your rocking chair, and remember when. And then wonder exactly when it was you got old.

A bit of backstory: By the time he retired, my dad was director of flight safety operations for TWA. As I mingled at his retirement party, I discovered people from the FAA, the NTSB, and an airline in FRANCE had come, as well as someone who was based in NYC and flew in just for the party and then was going right back home.

Fast-forward: An intern (I presume -- proper age range, etc) from the staff psychologist's office sat with me for 90 minutes in the ER running through the standard psych intake questionnaire. We're doing the part about immediate family. She asks about my dad and what he did.

"He worked for TWA," I say.

Totally confused. "What?"

"TWA. The airline."

"What?!?!"

"TRANS. WORLD. AIRLINES."

"The RAILROAD?"

"He was a PILOT in the NAVY and then he worked for an AIRLINE."

"Ohhhhhhhhh!"



I fear for our future.

(BTW, my dad died in 1999, which meant he didn't live long enough to see TWA go under, for which I was grateful. But still, even if this girl was 21 or 22, she would have been 10 or so when it disappeared. Maybe I'm weird, but I remember things from the news when I was 10!)