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The cabin lights had been dimmed, blankets pulled over legs or shoulders, and as usual, I was trying to will myself to fall asleep as the Boeing 737 conveyed us across the Atlantic. My wife and I were heading to England to visit my family and to introduce our six-month-old son to them. We’d been able to secure a coveted bulkhead seat with a bassinet, but there was no seat available for me there, so I found myself a couple of rows back. This was in the days before omnipresent screens on the back of seats: days when we read books, or chatted with strangers, or listened to a favorite band’s latest cassette on a Walkman.
