Vintage...

Pan Am has been haunting me lately. I should rephrase that Pan Am has haunted for years. Ever since the collapse of Pan Am in 1991, Pan Am has haunted me.

I always wanted to fly Pan Am but we never did as kid. We flew other defunct airlines, like Eastern. That was back in the day. I took an enormous 747 to Florida, from Boston. That's big plane to go to Florida in. They save those for the over seas flight now.

I love the Pan Am logo, and those beautiful Pan Am travel bags. Actually I was big fan of the Easter Airline's logo too. It was so simple, but I liked it. Apparently I liked their colors too. As I seam to have stolen them in my image.

But Pan Am has a certain romantic allure and the romantic history. Not to mention the classic advertising and the quintessential tropical poster. Not to mention happy planes :) But what plane it that tropical poster that's right it's the Honolulu Clipper. The old Pan Am Clippers, the Boeing 314 is the one that caught my fancy. Because I have a thing for flying boats. Note my love of Tales from the Gold Monkey and Jake flew a Grumman Goose, I love that back then, in the beginning there weren't enough runways, and this was the way get around it. You just needed a bay, some water... it was romantic.

I while back my pal Ellen lent me her copy of Night Over Water by Ken Follett. It's really a terrible book, it's hopelessly predictable, a romance novel, and very light and fluffy, but it is about the Yankee Clipper, it is utterly adorable, and it is perfect beach reading. So when I found a pristine hardcover at the thrift store, I could hardly believe my luck.

I thought Pan Am is haunting me again. Not a week later I was at the Christmas Tree shop and there was a Pan Am Clipper DVD I had to think Pan Am was haunting me. I bought it and was thrilled and disappointed. It was great, because it's Pan Am propaganda from the 50's and it's beautiful and fun to watch and see how priorities have shifted. And the planes! The lovely planes and services and sleep berths! But it's not about the clippers that I wanted to see. I loved it anyway.

Which leads to my image of vintage: