It was as normal as any other Sunday. Sunday Mornings for some kids were spent in front of a television watching cartoons and eating their favorite sugary cereal containing the highest quality toys crafted by the fine inhabitants of Hong Kong or putting on the nicest clothes they had to impress fellow parishioners at their local church. I was a little different. My family wasn't exactly the Church going kind of folk and I think my parents felt I had enough brain rotting on Saturdays. So every Sunday Morning, my father took my brother, my sister, and I to Cypress College's Weekend Swapmeet. My father would allow me to spend my five dollar allowance on pretty much anything I wanted. Early on that five big ones would go towards replenishing my He-Man collection or towards recruiting my ever growing G.I. Joe. One Sunday in particular my sister and I found ourselves separated from my father in search of tasty snacks. We would run around in a gigantic game of hide and seek and tag. Upon seeing my father I looked up towards the North Eastern Sky. And what I saw amazed me... an explosion and a plane disintegrated before my eyes. What frightened me most is that my best friend at the time Marco was supposed to be coming back to the United States from his Week Long Vacation in Mexico.
Imagine my horror when I learned that the mangled mess in the air was the remnants of Aeroméxico Flight 498 that was destroyed when a small charter plane flew right into the other plane. I nearly wept when I heard it was Aeroméxico, because that was the name of the airline Marco was flying out on. And this was the time he was supposed to be coming home. It would be a few days later, Marco told me that he was supposed to be on that flight, but a last minute decision kept him safely in Mexico for an extra day.
The last time I thought of this was during September 11th when I was hoping that the devastating collision into the World Trade Center was some lethal mistake. I thought about it again when I was checking Google Maps and saw that there is a feature that have links from Wikipedia. Just another reason I love Google Maps.
2 comments:
I was supposed to be in that flight too. I was going to Disneyland, on the final days of my vacational period... But my family and I missed that plane at Mexico City....
Isn't that crazy? Your life could have ended. Imagine all of your friends and family, who would have missed you. All the lives you impact would have changed. I'm no longer in contact with my friend Marco, but I still have fond memories of that guy. I'm glad your vacation plans kept you from suffering such a horrible fate.
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