( CNN ) -- Have you been flying much this summer ? If so , how has the experience been ? Right . Thought so . Flying these days -- the jammed-to-the-groaning-point cabins and torture-rack legroom ; the fees for everything from checking your bags to being handed a paltry package of food ; the endless , we'll-X-ray-you-to-within-an-inch-of-your-dignity security lines ; the sweaty guy in the next seat with a tank top on and his shoes off -- you know how it is . Airline asks passengers for gas money . Flying is too often a dreary , joy-sapping slog . It 's difficult even to remember that it was ever any other way . Which is why , at Midway Airport in Chicago recently , I was intrigued when someone mentioned to me a book about that very airport . The book had a workmanlike title : `` When Hollywood Landed at Chicago 's Midway Airport . '' Because the person who recommended it to me spoke in such glowing terms , I ordered a copy through the mail . Written by a fellow named Christopher Lynch , who grew up around Midway , it is a thin , paperbound volume that appears to be a labor of love and respect . It tells the story of one Mike Rotunno , a photographer-for-hire in the first boom years of commercial air travel in the United States . Rotunno -- he died in 1994 -- was a newspaper photographer who decided he might be able to do better as his own boss . In the 1930s , '40s and '50s , flying was a big deal . When a family went on vacation by air , it was a major life event . Rotunno set up a company called Metro News at Midway -- O'Hare International Airport was many years from being built -- to offer professional photo service to anyone passing through the airport who wanted a memento of the occasion . But he also began taking photos of Hollywood ( and political ) stars as they arrived in Chicago . The cross-country flights in those years had to stop to refuel , and Midway was often where they set down . Lynch 's book is filled with Rotunno 's old photos . And ... Well , take a look at the selection of those photos atop today 's column . The next time you 're frustrated and downcast about what air travel has become , the memory of the photos may serve as a tonic . `` Traveling by air in those years was n't like boarding a flying bus , the way it is today , '' Lynch told me . `` People did n't travel in flip-flops . I mean , no offense , Mister , but I do n't want to see your toes . '' Recovered wreckage fails to solve case of missing pilot . The trains were still king in those years . The airlines wanted to convince people that flying was safe . `` People were afraid to fly , '' Lynch said . `` And it was expensive . The airlines had to make people think it was something they should try . '' Enter Mike Rotunno . His pictures of the stars as they got off the planes made air travel seem to be glamorous , sophisticated , civilized , thrilling . The stars dressed up to fly -- and so did everyone else . Few celebrities had the option of private planes in those days , so the guy passing you in the aisle on a cross-country flight just might be Clark Gable . And everyone alighted from the planes by stairways onto the runways -- there were none of the sealed bridges that today attach to the terminals . The photos of the stars set the tone for flying . Lynch told me : `` People who saw pictures in the papers of stars getting off planes thought , 'Hey , if John Wayne can fly , I can fly . I want to be like John Wayne . ' `` Thus , there is Wayne -- the Duke himself -- looking like the proverbial million bucks , climbing off a TWA flight and striding toward Rotunno 's camera . There is Marilyn Monroe , right there with Mike and his Speed Graphic . Katharine Hepburn , a dream incarnate . Gary Cooper , taking a photo of Rotunno , as Rotunno took a photo of him . Rock Hudson , surrounded by fans . Red Skelton . Gene Autry . Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis . Jimmy Stewart . John F. Kennedy , Jacqueline Kennedy and Richard Nixon -- together , all in a single frame , beneath a United Airlines plane . It is a lost world -- the airborne world of everyday elegance , as available to the average ticket holder as to Bob Hope or to Abbott and Costello . Mike Rotunno , on a daily basis , captured it all . It was an arrangement in which everyone won . The airlines , which assisted him in lining up the photos , won because the results helped convince the public to abandon the trains . The Hollywood studios won because they got a little bit of free publicity for their stars . The newspapers won because , by buying photos from Rotunno , they did n't have to send photographers to the airport themselves . And Rotunno won , because he got the money . Potential FAA cuts would create big hassles for fliers . And he also won because he got the memories . Think of his photos the next time you 're shoehorned into a seat next to a fellow who 's dripping the sloppy innards of his carry-on submarine sandwich onto your sleeve . Air travel was once a treasured experience , exciting , exotic , something never to be forgotten . You , too , could travel like Elizabeth Taylor . Who , of course , knew that Mike Rotunno would be waiting for her on the runway at the bottom of the stairs . She 's gone now . He 's gone now . That era of travel is gone now . And you ? Your flight is boarding . Why are n't you smiling ? Are you a window flier or an aisle seater ? The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene .
Bob Greene : Flying has become a soul-sucking slog with cramped seats , bad food . He says it used to be pretty glamorous ; a Chicago photog captured this in '30s-'50s . Mike Rotunno took pictures of celebrities , politicians arriving at Midway Airport . Greene : Stars made flying desirable , high-toned ; think of this next time you endure a flight .