Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five Years by Christopher Lynch Lake Claremont Press Phone: 773/583-7800 www.lakeclaremont.com

As we headed south, we passed the nondescript hangar owned by a major Fortune 500 company, with their fleet of jets inside in all their gleaming splendor. I wonder if the company's shareholders know that their executives live like Princes, with helicopter rides to their awaiting jet, minutes before jetting off to a meeting on the coast. Corporate aviation, always the main stay of Monarch's business, is a behind the scenes business, that the vast majority of Americans do not know exists. It is a privileged few who get to partake in this good life, the ones who ride in these private jets, and the ones that service their aircraft.

On our circuit of the airport, at 3 O'Clock, we were now passing by the Army National Guard Hanger, the last military presence at the field. From the beginning the army had been at Midway, beginning with the 126th Air Core, back in the 1920's, when the field was called "Municipal". It was where a young lieutenant named George Marshall was stationed, before he would one day become a General, Secretary of State, and have a plan to reconstruct Europe named after him. Now helicopters were stationed where once there were Jennys. As a teenager working at the airport during the summers, I remember being held up on the ramp there many times, as I waited for the army Hueys, their blades thumping through the air, reeving up. If one was waiting in a car, you didn't want to get too close to those whirling blades. It was much safer to wait.

Continue the Tour: Skyline and Runways

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