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11: “Ali and Reynolds Get Their Wings”
The magical day of flying to New York City had arrived. All the goodbyes had been made to relatives with an occasional hug now and again. Even Grandma Agnes was nice, and gave Ali and Reynolds a couple dollars to spend on their trip to New York. Uncle Dan held Ali up in the air and pretended to fly her around the ceiling of the empty house on River Street one last time, and kidded her about the alligators she should look out for when she got to New York. Grandma Nettie was happy for Caroline and kept saying that George needed his family near him in order to keep his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds. Ali wasn’t sure what she meant, but it sounded like a good thing----keeping your feet on the ground. Uncle Mack told her to remember that she’d always be “San Fernando Ali” to him and not to forget him. Ali assured him, she would not forget him.
Being on an airplane was the most amazing thing Ali thought. They were far up in the clouds looking out the little windows at patches of brown and green way down below on the ground. You couldn’t even see houses or anything from that high up in the air. The roar and rumble of the propellers was very exciting. The lady who walked up and down the aisles gave them some food to eat and miniature airline wings for Ali and Reynolds to put on their shirts, just like the wings she had on her jacket. Ali’s heart pounded from excitement. Riding in an airplane. Going to a new place to live. Seeing her father. It had been such a long time since she had seen him. She sat in her seat thinking about her father. Although he was not as tall as Uncle Dan, her father was tall. Her mother always said he was so handsome with his dark hair, his wonderful smile, and his blue eyes. He looked just like a movie star, her mother would say. Ali didn’t look like either her mother or father she thought. She and Reynolds had blond hair, (but they did have blue eyes like her Daddy.) So many things to think about while flying in an airplane.
Every now and then the man who flew the plane would tell them they were approaching a certain place or that they were flying over a lake or something else interesting. Boy, was it a long time on the airplane. New York was certainly a long way from the Valley. Her mother and Reynolds played cards a lot of the time, while Ali looked at her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland. She always liked the part at the beginning where Alice fell down a rabbit hole and began her adventures with all kinds of strange animals and people in a very curious place.
When they landed at the airport and retrieved their luggage, the family climbed in a yellow car called a taxi and drove a long way to their new home.
“Wow, look at all the tall buildings!” Reynolds exclaimed. Reynolds who hardly ever seemed impressed with anything, was amazed at all the things he was seeing from the taxi cab. Their mother kept pointing at different sights, and Ali and her brother kept turning their heads from side to side to take it all in. They finally were traveling down the streets of the city.
“Well, kids, this is Manhattan,” said the taxi driver as he looked at the three of them seated in the back of his taxi through his rearview mirror.
“I thought we were going to New York City mother,” Ali piped up.
“Manhattan is part of New York City. It is a very big city. See here in the travel guide book that your father sent us, it says: “New York City is made of of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.” Ali had never heard of any of those places. the only thing that sounded familiar was “Queens” like the Queen of Hearts in her Alice book.
“Where’s Daddy?” Ali asked her mother.
“He’s at a hotel where we will meet him in just a little while, Honey. The first one who sees the sign for the Hotel Preston gets a quarter”, said Ali’s mother.
“We’ll stay there for a little while until our apartment is ready for us in October,” added Caroline. She kept looking out the window at everything as they drove through the bustling streets. She, too, like her mother had traveled to Chicago when she was young and had grown up in Hollywood, but she had never seen quite so big a city as New York. They all huddled together in the back seat, each of them wondering what was in store for them.
“I can hardly wait to see your father,” said Caroline.
“I want to go to the Statue of Liberty,” said Reynolds
“I want to see Daddy, too,” said Ali who was holding tightly on her mother’s arm with Smokey Bear crunched in between them somewhere.
“I see it!” yelled Reynolds. “The Hotel Preston is on the corner over there. I win,” he said triumphantly. Ali didn’t care. She yelled, “and there’s Daddy over there----look mother, there’s Daddy waving at us.” George quickly ran down the steps of the hotel toward his family.