It is a Saturday night in Ithaca, New York. The temperature is 7 degrees, and the gusts of 26 knots blow snow across the ramp. The only available evidence of this blowing snow is provided by powerful floodlights attached to the hangar that make for a scene that is both bright white and, just beyond the lights’ reach, the deep, dark black of winter. Our passengers are due back at 10:30 p.m. for the short flight to White Plains, New York.
I used to stand just a few feet from here in the old terminal looking at exactly this type of weather while waiting for airplanes to arrive. That was 50 years ago. I was a student at Cornell University, and I had a job at the airport renting Avis cars and driving the airport limousine — an eight-door affair, a stretched Pontiac of some sort. Some nights, I would wait for the last Mohawk Airlines plane to arrive in just this kind of weather. It was due in from Kennedy around 11 p.m., but it would often be delayed and arrive at daybreak or canceled altogether.
