Travelling adventures of an eleven year old girl....

I started to get on airplanes and fly 1500 or so miles, by myself, when I was eleven years old. Don't be too astounded. I also would go through customs and had smuggled items in my suitcase at that tender age.

First off, before y'all freak out. We are talking 1953 here, the year I turned eleven. It was a simpler time, either that we were all too dumb to know better.

I took my first plane ride when I was about ten. My mother was convinced I would be airsick so she pumped me so full of Dramamine that she practically had to carry me onto the airliner. I haven't the foggiest recollection of whether that flight was rough or smooth. Most likely it was pretty much on the rough side, after all, the planes flew at under ten thousand feet because there was no such thing as a pressurized cabin.

We were on another flight when trouble, with a capital T struck. My mom, my baby sister, and I once had a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth because somewhere over the great state of Texas an engine fell off of the plane. Yeah, it fell off. We limped into the airport on a wing and a prayer and one engine. They did not have any spare engines when we landed. The had to send another plane from somewhere to pick up all of the passengers and get us to our destinations.
We finally got to our destination, several hours late and hungry. No, the airline did not extend the courtesy of feeding us.

Anyway, back to my tale about an eleven year old smuggler. In 1953 I started to boarding school in the fabulous city of El Paso Del Norte, known as El Paso to us common folk.
We lived in Mexico City and so, it wasn't exactly a commute. I would get on an Aeronaves de Mexico flight in Mexico City. My destination was Ciudad Juarez. A person from my school would meet the plane and take me across the border.

This flight was more than eight hours long. A real puddle hopper that skimmed the tops of the Sierra Madre mountains. It was like riding a roller coaster. Everyone on board had barf-it bags at the ready. Except me, I was eleven and your basic dare devil. I enjoyed the ride.

We were residents of Mexico. Expatriates. Thereby, we could not play tourist and bring in goods or take any out for that matter. So, as a result, I was elected to smuggle in shoes and stockings for my mom, baby clothes for my sister, underwear for my dad.
I would go home twice a year, at Christmas and in the summer. I guess I was the logical choice for this operation. Its not that these items are not available in Mexico City. The sizes are all different. For example: my mom had a very narrow feet. Mexican ladies have wide feet so the Mexican shoemakers never made narrow shoes.

This smuggling went on all of the years I went to school in El Paso.
The Operation was obviously a success, I was never arrested for these transgressions.