AIR TRAVEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 14

AIR TRAVEL.

! A MANAGER'S JOYS. I l I ! | STRANGER THAN FICTION. ! j A FALLEN STAR'S HABITS. ! ' L (By a Special Correspondent.) i NEW YORK, May 30. I | As traffic manager of an aeroplane ' j transportation company, E. V. Gariepy | takes his fun in a railroad office next I door. | That would be the passenger office of j I the New York Central Lines on Yander- i j bilt Avenue. Mr. Gariepy likes to be j j around when people call up the pasien- j , ger agent and ask him to c'.ear up cor-' j tain points. Sometimes it's thei" first I trip on a Pullman, and chey want to 1 I know whether it's necessary to bring i along their own bedding and picnic ! i The knowledge that such lack of in- : formation exists after all these decades of train travel bucks Mr. Gariepv up [ and enables him to answer his own telephone patiently and politely. Mr. ! Gariepy i*> called pretty nearly every day by people who are making their nrst aeroplane trip. They want to know if the company supplies helmet and goggles with the ticket, or is that extra, and what about this parachute stuff? Do they get instructions on how to do it, or are they just tossed out among the clouds, with only instinct to guide . them? No, says Mr. Gariepy sweetly, not at all. Then he begins gently to explain that it's this way, etc. Old Story Come True. There is an old transportation gag, treasured and polished from century to century, that the aeroplane at last" has ! made eome true. Or, at least, Mr. Gariepy argues violently that it has come true. The base of the gag is the fellow who got on the wrong train and didn't find out he was at the wrong place until it became embarrassing. It

seems to be something that leads gag writers to go on from there into many variations, the latest being afcout the talkative drunk who got on at Chicago and asked his neighbour where he was ] going. "New York.*' implied the neighj hour Bollenly. "Well. weH, •Well." welled i i the drunk, "isn't tMs a marvellous age j we're living in? If*re veu're going to 1 New ork and I'm going to Los Angeles and still we're on the same train. '" ! Blackout. , "This Is Tulsa." : Mr. Gariepy's stranger-than-fiction ver- ! ! sion is about the St. Louis Barbecue merchant who was prevailed upon to demon- : -tate the rapidity of air travel Sv ; boarding a 'plane with some of his sandwiches and serving them to some carefully selected patrons at Chicago, i The theory was they still would be ] warm after the 200-mile flight, and! | something or other vital would be' i proved. i 1 : i Well, wells Mr. Gariepy, the merchant | snatched up his sandwiches, tore over to the airport, nursed them through the; flight and, when he landed, found no j patrons at all. He decided ther must j be waiting for him at the companv's offices on Wacker Drive, so he hustled j j into a taxi and ordered much haste.! "Wacker Drive?" queried the driver.! -< Where s that?" ''You're supposed to be I a Chicago taxi driver and you don't know where Wacker Drive i~ ?*' screamed the merchant. "My goodness. gracious."! replied the hackie. in words to that | effect. ' This ain't Chicago. This i~! Tul*a." Blackout. Unless you want to get drunk awf-il cheap, don't take anything M all before) going up. The air pressure high up gives one drink the strength of ten. An Ex-wonder. YouH find him hanging around the ! stage doors of every show in rehearsal—, a blue-jowled, chunky little young man. ' his natty outfit topped by a powder white felt hat, and concluded with high heeled shoes. He knows all the doormen in town. They used to ask him for his j autograph. Now they sneak him into standing-room on opening nighty, and he stands, sullen and alone, chewing savagely on a fate black cigar and think" ! ing how much better he could do what-1 ever they're doing on the stage if onlvi he were given the chance. ' I

Ten years ago he was riding on top of the world. A bor Vonder, star of the musical comedy stage. Hp travelled up and down and around town like a parade, his "friends"' forming a flying i wedge for him fore and aft. In those days he could do do wronjr. No matter j how often he got drunk, the managers 1 were willing to give him another chance. He's still a boy—not 3C yet —but no longer a wonder. As a matter of fact ■ t'ne only time he has worked in the last : three years was for two weeks in a : suburban clip joint. Nobody knows how he keeps his clothes pressed, shoes shined and cigar—symbol of wealth — in evidence. There's a theory that one oisar lasts him a year. Anyway, no-li-xly has ever seen him light one. He itist chews it. I don't know whv I'm tellinsr you all | this, except that I saw him the other nisrht. hurry in cr out from a premiere : amid a well-dressed throng that wa« limousine-brmnd. He was the only one to stop and jrive the pencil vendor a quarter.— (X.A.X.A.)