An unnamed ninety-year-old scientist seeks to occupy his time recuperating from a serious illness by reminiscing about the past. He is unable to recall anything more than faint feelings from his recent past in the twenty-first century, but he can still clearly recall his early impressions of coming to America in the 1940s. Born in Paris, the scientist's mother died when he was still an infant. When the scientist was seven years old, his music teacher father and grandmother brought him to the United States to escape persecution. The family traveled around, first living in New York, then Boston, and lastly, an unidentified college town. In his youth, the scientist was fascinated by the skyscrapers and cabs of the city, drugstores and their soda jerks, and coach trains and airplanes. With these airplanes, the old scientist ends his reflection of the past, relaying a scene of pausing on his bicycle to watch a war plane pass overhead, awestruck by its technological prowess as well as its potential for new levels of destruction. These planes, and all flying machines, have since been outlawed, but their majesty and prowess is not lost on the scientist.