Just one photo. From 1999. Maybe September. Or October. I remember the autumn season then. I am talking about the 747 in the above photo. A few days ago my cousin sent me this photo from their son’s bedroom wall. It has been with them for more than 20 years. And this was taken a couple of years before he was born.

This brought back a lot of vivid memories. How the brain needs a simple trigger to pull back the patterns that are stored somewhere. And looking back how much things have changed in these times…

• That is a Boeing 747-400 plane popular at that time, and now no longer being made. The market has shifted to two-engine aircraft from these large behemoths.

• North West the airline in the photo is no more. Merged with Delta in post 9/11 carnage on the airline industry.

• One could go up to the international gates to receive and send guests. I had gone to the Detroit airport gate to send someone off (I know him well and remember this software developer going back to India). How much trust has changed? I used to see a more mellow America in the late ’90s which is no more now.

• I had driven to Detroit from Columbus, Ohio where I was working at that time. At Bank One. A bank that was consumed next year by JP Morgan Chase. And Jamie Dimon the CEO of Bank One became the CEO of Chase in this reverse merger. And I remember sending gifts to my wife and two kids through this person.

• I used film-based cameras then. I think that this was the last of my film cameras. I don’t remember the brand but this was shot on a 24 mm cartridge APS camera - I am not sure whether anyone remembers them (not the standard 35 mm film format) and it could do these wide double width shots. I am sure I still have the camera and the processed cartridges lying around somewhere.

Just marveling at how humans have been designed. With one small trigger, a ton of stories and memories.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Photo_System