After the Muir Woods tour, we returned to the downtown airline terminal and from there to the San Francisco airport. I called my Aunt and Uncle Green across the bay in San Leandro and discovered that he was on leave from Elmendorf AFB outside of Anchorage, Alaska. Also, my Grandma Breeze was visiting. I asked if they didn't mind my coming over and spending New Year's Eve and Day with them, so I believe I caught an SFO helicopter to Oakland airport and someone picked me up. The top photograph is of Aunt Jean, Cousin Doug and his fiance, Sue, watching TV in their den on New Year's Day. The lower photograph is of Doug at the kitchen table with Grandma Breeze in the background, keeping busy, as usual.
What I have failed to mention was that I had abandoned Mike at SFO, to fly back to LAX on his own. He was upset at having been abandoned, but he was more upset when he watched PSA wheel up a Lockheed Electra for his return flight. The 727-200 we were supposed to take back had mechanical troubles, and they must have kept a spare Electra ready in case of just such an emergency. You see, I had told Mike about, and he had further read all about, the air crashes that early Electras had had not long after they'd entered service (a Braniff Electra had come apart in the air over Texas, and an American Airlines Electra came apart over Lake Michigan after taking off from Chicago. Mike had vowed never to fly in an Electra, but here he was being forced to do so by himself. He never did let me forget about that.
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