The regional jet taxied up to one of the many jetways at the Portland, Maine, jetport. My wife and I were here to attend a family gathering about an hour north of Portland. The day was lovely and sunny. I leaned forward and peered out the window to look at the control tower off to the right. It was a square white building with a six-sided glass structure at the top, set back from the tarmac. A chain-link fence surrounded it, with a locked entrance gate on the far side. The terminal seemed to extend quite a way to the left and to the rear, and most of the jetways were occupied by passenger jets.
My mind filled with a flood of memories of taxiing to this very building and parking my rented Cessna 150 on the apron just in front of it. That was 36 years ago, and that day the sky had been dark with approaching thunderstorms. There were no fences, and the terminal to the left of the tower was a relatively small building that housed ticket counters, two baggage carousels and a couple of car rental counters. It was difficult to layer that simple image in my memory over the complexity of the present structures. I also recalled how great my sense of relief was as I shut down the engine after that stressful flight.
