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After a 45 minute delay to board my plane to Chicago, and then another hour sitting on the runway waiting for clearance (during which they refused to hand out beverages to the dehydrating masses), the time finally arrived for departure.
There was a lot of turbulence during take off. Since this was my 331st time flying, I kept reading my book about the Cold War (the Rosenbergs had just been executed for spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. Apparently, they gave the commies all of our nuclear secrets. Damn commies).
I heard the captain over the speaker say something about maintaining 8,000 feet.
"That seems low," I thought and kept reading (Alger Hiss really was a commie-spy).
The turbulence continued and I didn't care until a flight-attendant got on the speaker, "Folks, please remain seated. The captain is trying to determine what that sound is. As soon as we figured it out, we'll let you know. Sorry for the inconvenience."
My mind went through the dozens of humming, buzzing, and hissing sounds that are always audible on an airplane. None of them seemed out of the ordinary.
"Folks, this is the captain. That sound we heard on take-off was a bird taking out one of our engines. Everything is okay, but we cannot continue to Chicago. We'll be making a landing back at Philadelphia. There will be emergency vehicles following us. Please don't be alarmed."
People became alarmed.
Everyone shifted to get a good look at each engine in hopes of seeing some bird-guts. To my disappointment, I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, but there was a lot of turbulence.
I kept reading (FDR and Truman sure were pals with Stalin. FDR even called him "Uncle Joe". Commie-lovers!)
The landing was rougher than usual and people were disturbed. I think most of us were more upset about not making it to Chicago.
We unloaded from the plane and stood in various lines waiting to hear some news. We were eventually told that there was no way to get to Chicago from Philly that night.
During the hour we waited to get new tickets, the pilots came out and found themselves surrounded by all the passengers with no easy exit.
I said, "Well, what kind of bird was it?"
The captain looked up at me, "Seagulls. At least two."
"Seagulls?" I exclaimed. "To take out a plane, I was thinking it would at least be something the size of a pterodactyl."
He laughed, "No, no. It only takes a few small birds to do it."
"Damn. Well, I hope they suffered," I said thinking of commies, not birds.
"Heh. I'm sure they did, son."
Good.
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