Carry - On ...

When I was created and delivered to my final destination, it didn’t take too long to wait until I was offered as a personal gift from TWA to an Airline Hostess upon graduation day.

I was so thrilled to enter the life of one as an international escort and my joy had no limits when I was assigned to my French mistress. I would always be ready to move upon her instructions.

I was born in 1910 in Denver, Colorado USA and my creator was Jesse Shwayder. I was named after Samson who was the Biblical strongman and later, my entire family was called Samsonite…

My mistress was ever so tender and proud to have received me although she knew I had many siblings which looked just like me… beige coloured, thin and with own key but it was the personal luggage tag which distanced me from the others as it clearly stated I belonged to one special person.

I had to be carried by the top handle whilst my grandchildren today have wheels which increase, of course, the pressure upon their bottom through asphalt, rain or snow.

When I entered my mistress’s life and along the million and half miles of duty, I became her faithful companion around the world.

I was her first, the strongest and I served my mistress well during the longest time of her flying assignments, until I retired due to wear and tear.

But I was carried and taken good care of during all moments of active duty and I know for sure that I would be regarded as a sentimental value, which is what humans feel.

Never did I join the rest of the awesome travelling crowd in the aircraft’s belly - although the sheer pleasure of jabbing my sharp corners at a Louis Vuitton trunk would have been an extraordinary feat for me - I felt privileged and honoured to be placed inside the cabin, in First class, right in front of the dividing curtain, supporting the back of its last row’s seat.

I remember the care I was given. Although the tossing and bumping, the hardships of intense travelling were very much a test of endurance, it was all worth it. 

Upon each return from a journey in the air, from a night in multiple hotel rooms to the countless examinations by Official uniformed custom officers, men or women of the world, and finally arrive home to rest, along with some of my sisters, in the tiny studio flat in Manhattan, I experienced a hectic and passionate life which reflected very much the personality of the emotional human pretty face of my mistress.

During this short moment of respite, only three days for my lady to rest and resource in between flights, have her uniform dry-cleaned and the silk lingerie hand-washed, I was never forgotten.

First emptying the personal contents I had protected with great responsibility, I was for each time cleaned, inside out, towards the final check just to make sure I would be ready to be locked to follow my mistress for new adventures in the skies, carrying everything she needed.

Sometimes I felt her mind to be elsewhere and there was nothing I could do about it, except watch her disarray or frustration when she became angry for her forgetfulness during a stop somewhere in the Middle-East or anywhere else in the world…

You could say I was the perfect silent partner and from the very beginning, I realized I was the one which meant everything in the life of my busy lady at the time. She didn’t own anything else therefore each item placed inside my bosom would always have a special significance.

I ended my services but would forever exist in a special collection my mistress called memory.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go.                                                    But no matter, the road is life."

                                                        - Jack Kerouac -