MY FIRST FLIGHT

May begins today and I have a tought for my first flight: not fully sure, but it was on some day of May 1964, sandwiched between sea journeys, Lisbon to Canary Islands and back. This first flight took me from Tenerife to Las Palmas, a short cross above the sea from one island to another. At the age of 23, once the plane took off I got then a feeling that I was turning a real adult, a young man of my time able to use all the technologies now available to mankind.
To use, or to abuse? Indeed, if I have a glimpse back from today to May 1964, I feel that not only I used planes a lot, but that I abused using them. From remote and almost hidden airstrips in Angola (Cela, for instance) to the major and most recent airports (the new Hong-Kong one, for instance, replacing the old "in town" one, which I also used), from far-away tarmacks (like Bora-Bora) to brand-new heavily used terminals (like Heathrow nº. 5) I am unable to have a count of how many I have been in - including Aden, where in the 60's I saw a lot of russian MIG's hidden in-between buildings, while the plane I was in was rolling in the landing strip.
A very sad event of the memories of my first flight comes to my mind: the landing airport in Las Palmas was some years later the scene of one of the most deadful aviation accidents, when two huge planes collided, with more than 500 fatal casualties, if I keep the figures right.