Pursuant to the aviation theme of the past couple of posts, I found this photograph, dated July 1961, of a Sud-Aviation Caravelle, an innovative and highly successful French jetliner of the '50s and '60s, in Swissair livery. I almost certainly saw this very plane not once but several times, since my favorite pastime as an innocent youth was plane-spotting at Geneva's Cointrin Airport, a short bike ride from the house I grew up in; no doubt this beauty, HB-ICX, paid me several visits. I may even have flown on it on one of my occasional trips to the UK, Paris, or Italy.

In those less troubled times, access to the airport viewing terrace was unimpeded; one could even wander onto the tarmac to inhale the vivifying fumes of airplane fuel. Among the distinguished passengers I saw through binoculars from my rooftop perch was Charles De Gaulle in 1961, disembarking from his presidential aircraft (another Caravelle) on his way to the peace conference in Evian that ended the Algerian war.