Flight Delayed

OK, so here's the deal. We got to spend most of last weekend in the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. If you've spent a weekend in a major airport you'll know this is not something you would choose to do, (unless the alternative is flying in lightning with a tornado warning thrown in, which it was.)

When our flight was cancelled a harried ticket agent booked us on a morning flight. Mindful of the cost of lodging, we decided we would tough out the night in the terminal. We were instructed to retrieve the luggage we had checked, and given a printout of our new flights. We got the suitcase and proceeded to check-in armed with our new flight information. We intended to check the bag so it could be re-tagged and then go through security to the terminal where the comfy chairs were. (This is a relative statement.)

Glitch number 1: You can't do that. According to US Airways you can't check baggage overnight because of federal rules. My guess is the operative words are something like "unattended" but given the fact that airlines have slashed staff, late night baggage security may have seemed expendable.

Glitch number 2: The three ounce rule. Since 9-1-1 you can't have more than 3 ozs. of liquid in your carry-on. As we had some toiletries in the checked bag we couldn't simply schlep it through security until morning when it could be checked. Besides, since airlines now charge for checked luggage we had stuffed everything we both needed for a week in the one bag. As a result it would be hard to convince security that the bulging, zipper strained Samsonite was "carry-on."

Glitch number 3: Lacking services outside the secure area. By the time US Air had cancelled the flight, re-scheduled everyone and we had done the luggage dance, we were hungry. Bouyed by the fact that our ticket agent had told us cots and pillows would be delivered soon we decided to go and seek out a meal. I spoke to a police officer who ended the conversation with "I only tell you this because it's true." What he said was that there was no food in the airport outside the security area except a coffee shop two terminals away only accessible by shuttle.

As we were seriously hungry and, as the officer pointed out having "plenty of time," we decided to go for it. This involved taking all of our luggage because "since 9-1-1" there are no baggage lockers outside secure areas. (I put "since 9-1-1" in quotes because the standard explanation for any inconvenience is either "it's an act of God," or "since 9-1-1," in airport situations. When I pointed out to someone that 9-1-1 was ten years ago, sufficient time to plan for these situations, the history lesson appeared to be unappreciated. In fact, most of the people we dealt with during this situation were obviously stressed and generally humorless, another artifact of reduced staffing.)

When we got there the coffee shop turned out to be more of a pastry shop in the middle of the international arrivals terminal. Niether of us felt like being on display in our misery. Fortunately, I noticed though there was a Grand Hyatt in the terminal so we went to see if they had a restaurant. They did, however, the average price of an entree was around $28.00. Still, the atmosphere was nice, waitstaff helpful and sympathetic, and the food delicious. The wine also helped our attitude although at $12.00 a glass we didn't "attitude adjust" quite as much as we might have.

Glitch number 4: Ticket agents best intentions are sometimes unmet. (In my first draft, this glitch was less generously expressed.) After we finished our meal we took a shuttle back to the original terminal, specifically the baggage area, where we expected to see cots. No cots. No ticket agents. The only US Airways employee to be seen was a baggage service worker who was occupied with flights that were trying to get on the ground and out of the storms.

Glitch number 5: Lodging when scores of flights are cancelled. Hundreds of stranded passengers equal strained hotel resources. Since we were not anxious to spend the night in the chairs in the baggage area I went exploring.

Pleasant surprise number 1: Courtesy phones with direct lines to services. Behind the baggage carrell and the seats that surround it, I found a bank of phones with direct lines to various hotels, rental car agencies, etc. The first two hotels I tried were full but the desk at the last suggested a Marriot that also had a direct line on the courtesy phone. I dialed and was told "yes, we have rooms available." When I gave her my name she said "did you just call?" Getting a sinking feeling I told her I hadn't. Thankfully she replied: "That's OK we can handle you both," and gave me directions to their shuttle.

Pleasant surprise number 2: Shuttle drivers, while insane behind the wheel, are cheerful and helpful. Dallas/Fort Worth looks like a cloverleaf in search of a highway. Consequently, at 60 mph and inches away from some other shuttle, passengers spend most of whatever trip they are on nearly horizontal to their left or right depending on the direction of the curve. (There are no straightaways which is probably a blessing because I don't want to know how fast one of those top heavy busses will go.)

Still, the drivers were invariably helpful, rushing to help with luggage and keeping up a steady stream of genuinely funny albiet occasionally off-color, banter.

After an uneventful night in an actual bed, (It might have been eventful had we stayed in the hotel lounge any longer as the place was full of New York Giant and Dallas Cowboy fans - but that's another story,) we returned to DFW and in deepening clouds made our flight that connected through Regan International Airport in Washington, DC.

Glitch number 6: Boarding passes and gate numbers don't always match. Four hours into a six hour layover in Washington we discovered that the gate number on our boarding passes didn't match the overhead listings in the terminal. I approached a man wearing a US Airways ID and was told that the overhead listing was correct. He directed us to a shuttle to the appropriate terminal.

Pleasant surprise number 3: As long as you take the airline shuttle you don't have to go through security again.

During our remaining wait we listened to announcements that rerouted ticket holders to several different connections, to different gates. In one case passengers were sent to a new gate and a few moments later asked to return to the original one. This caused a general guffaw among those of us who were relatively stationary and a visible blush on the part of the man making the announcement.

Just before the last leg of our journey I noticed a weather report being shown on an overhead monitor. The meteorologist was describing a tornado warning in east Texas. Boarding our flight I imagined a ticket agent saying to a passenger at the now distant Dallas/Fort Worth airport: "I'm sorry sir, we cannot help you, this is an act of God."

Cemetery Road

The lane is graveled and narrow with trees lapping at its sides. There are only two houses along the half mile leading to the cemetery for which the road is named. I am interested in old cemeteries and so visit this one that is near home. It is my first visit even though we have lived here ten years or more.

Through the trees along Cemetery Road a chain link fence can be seen that is topped with three strands of barbed wire that lean out. The road ends, for all practical purposes, at the cemetery. (The lane that is Cemetery Road continues into the forest guarded by a gate warning that trespassing is prohibited on the military reservation beyond this point.)
The first grave inside the fence surrounding the burial ground is a modern one of polished red marble. It bears the name of a man who died four years ago and that of his wife who survived him. She is well known in our little community and I know her from town meeting pot luck dinners.

It is surprising to me that so ancient and isolated a cemetery is in current use but on further exploration discover that there are a number of graves with dates from the last decade. Some are adorned with flowers or other artifacts meaningful only to the giver and recipient.
In addition to the new graves there many much older ones. The oldest I see marks the remains of a woman who died in 1843. There are several others whose tenants died in the 1860’s. I wonder to myself whether or not there might have been a church in the vicinity that would explain the presence of a graveyard of this vintage. Looking about there is no evidence of any structure. I know from walking in this area though, that the woods are riddled with stone fences and cellar holes.

Just as I am about to leave the cemetery a memorial stone bench catches my attention. It is new, highly polished, and bears an image laser etched from a photo. It shows the honoree proudly displaying a deer he has just killed. All around the bench someone has placed small American flags. The legend identifies the deceased as a Sergeant in the army “K.I.A. Ramadi, Iraq.” Killed in Action is not spelled out.

As I ponder the significance of this, a series of shots ring out. It is automatic weapons fire and is unmistakably military in origin. I don’t panic. The reservation abutting the cemetery includes a firing range and this sound is not unusual here. Still, I wonder if our Sergeant finds it reassuring or if it haunts him instead.

The Clothes Line

Renée has been badgering me to put up a clothesline since we moved to this house ten years ago.

“The clothes always smell so nice” she will say.

“Yes, and they’re really scratchy.” I reply.

My real objection springs from the fact that I associate clotheslines with the tenement buildings in the mill town where I grew up. It was not the clotheslines themselves that bothered me, after all, in the 50’s nearly every family had one. Behind the mill-owned tenements though, the amount of line and laundry that flapped in tepid breezes were signal flags saying to me: “poor and dependent mill slaves live here.” (This impression may have been colored by my father’s leadership in the union at the mill.)

The women of the tenements wore sun dresses with crisp white aprons and reached high overhead to secure the wet clothing to the line. If there were two, or several, they chatted across the space that separated the porches. It was a kind of communion for them. They discussed the day, their children, and gossiped about goings on at the mill. Most were homemakers who only saw each other there, or at the little market next to the mill.

The image of lines of laundry is not a nostalgic one for me and I explained it to Renée. She has three brothers and six sisters so volumes of laundry say something different to her. The clotheslines of her youth were strung from crossbars attached to poles behind the farmhouse her parents had bought to free themselves of the city. That the farm also provided meat and vegetables, (albeit, through a great deal of shared labor,) was, and continues to be, a source of pride for her. Since that conversation when we see a clothesline she looks wistfully and says “Oh look Dear, poor white trash.” She artfully chides my memory that associates her past with that of “poor and dependent mill slaves.”

Finally, about a month ago, I gave in and together we strung a clothesline from our deck to a maple in the tree line behind our house. The clothesline has reels at either end. The user hangs an item and then pushes it out toward the opposite end, making room for the next. We chose this kind because the land slopes away from our deck and this arrangement makes it possible to hang the laundry from one spot while keeping the line level. It is the same arrangement as the tenements except that there, the far reel attached to poles that served all the floors of the building.

Since I am retired and Renée is not, it has fallen on me to be the clothesline‘s primary user. This has necessitated a reframing of attitude on my part. That is good, I have done a lot of reframing since I entered the leisure class. Our memories are of separate lives. It is time to build them for this one. While they remain scratchy, the clothes hung from the line really do smell nice.

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything lately. I'd like to say there was a good reason but there are only several bad ones. Anyway, I'm going to try to do better.

My Life as a Celebrity

Some days being a fat guy with a white beard entails a lot of responsibility. Chief among them is Christmas of course. There are others (think green elfenwear on St. Patrick’s Day,) but mercifully most grow out of the expectations of individuals rather than society in general.
I had avoided all these associations since having been Santa at a school where my first wife taught. In the aftermath of that performance, still recounted at staff holiday parties after several cups of punch, I shaved the beard, opting for a less analogous moustache for a few years.

Now that I have grandchildren, I have relaxed my “no Santa comparisons” rule and have sometimes gone as far as wearing the traditional fur trimmed red stocking cap. This year, more by coincidence than design, I also wore a bright red chamois shirt that implied more than it stated.

It is our tradition to spend Christmas Eve with my stepdaughter Nikki’s family. This involves a seventy-mile drive and this year, a stop or two along the way. The first of these was the post office in Jonesville to get stamps and mail some bills I had made out in the morning.

As I approached the post office, I noticed a man holding the door open. In a halting German accent and a broad grin, he said. “After you, Herr Santa.” He gave a deep, formal bow as I strode past. At the counter, I asked for stamps and received the holiday version without the usual display of choices. I took this as a plus, more out of distaste for the rote sales pitch for the others than a preference for the “festive” holiday stamps.

Later, in the Grand Union where we had stopped for Christmas Eve snacks I walked by a little girl who struggled in her mother’s arms. She looked at me with interest but continued to struggle and protest that she wanted to get down. As she squirmed and looked over mother’s shoulder, I looked at her sternly and mouthed the words, “I know!” Understanding crossed her face and she settled against her mother’s chest, sucking her thumb and stifling a tear. (This does not work as well with my Grandchildren who, after all, know me.)

Finally, we went to Nikki’s house. Mike’s family, (son-in-law,) had a dinner so Renee and I were on babysitting duty which usually involves Renee and the kids going to bed. Santa, on the other hand foraged up a bottle of wine and watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” trying not to think of the other Bert and Ernie.

After a couple of glasses the wine ran out. I decided a Santa, however jolly, that consumed the family wine rather than milk and cookies, (which, incidentally, I also ate,) might not be the best role model and went out for more.

Finding wine at 9:00 P.M. on Christmas Eve is not easy. Grand Union – closed, P&C – closed, you get the picture. Mercifully, there is always the Midway Mobil Convenience Store and Truck Stop. Harsh florescent light bathed the entire parking lot, revealing every irregularity in the pavement, spill and puddle of indeterminate origin within its reach. I parked and entered the store, as artfully lit as the surrounding property.

Two aging and round faced cherubs stood behind the counter in matching green Dickies uniforms. They smiled and the man greeted me with a rousing “Santa, good to see you tonight.” The woman beside him also smiled and greeted me in a way that I found disturbingly familiar but maybe I was becoming self-important with all the special treatment. Just inside there was a wine rack and I looked for the brand that Santa had polished off along with his milk and cookies. Seeing none, I settled on a Robert Mondavi “Special Reserve” Pinot Noir. I grabbed two bottles, one to replace the bottle I’d consumed and one for punitive damages.

I placed the wine on the counter by the cash register and pulled out my wallet to pay. Cherub one, the male, said “Whoa Santa – Long night huh?”
“Yes,” I answered, “and cold. Ho Ho Ho.”

Shopping

Since I’ve retired I do most of the grocery shopping. We try to eat “right” so I buy mostly locally produced organic food. Around here, that means going to a health food store in Burlington that is big enough, and with sufficient variety, that I can get almost everything in one spot.

I like it. The shelves are not in neat rows but are at angles that create the illusion of curves that defy my ability to construct a path between familiar products. Even after months of two or three shopping trips each, I sometimes have to ask where I might find a needed item. It’s something different every time and the variety of experience appeals to me.

Yesterday I was curious about goat cheese. (Who hasn’t been there?)

“What can you tell me about goat cheese?” I asked the woman behind the counter. Young, like most of the staff, she exuded a nonjudgmental aura reminiscent of the 60’s. In fact, most of the staff evoked a neo-hippy culture, with their yin and yang tattoos and novel hairstyles. It is almost as if our children – who rebelled by becoming young republicans – had their own rebels.

“I can tell you lots about goat cheese!” she replied and proceeded to show me all the products with explanations rife with comparisons to cow’s milk cheeses and adjectives like “creamy, rich,” and “yummy.” She was round faced and stocky in an almost maternal way, accented by her colorful peasant blouse and apron.

Thanking her, I selected three different cheeses that she had been most effusive about and continued to seek out the rest of the stuff on my list.

When I had finished shopping, I wheeled my cart to the checkout counter. There was no line so I began by putting the items I had selected, frozen first followed by produce and then fragile items as usual.

The young woman behind the register, a slender blond, was not someone I had seen before but with the requisite irreverent pleasantness I had come to expect. The staff does not wear name tags and I don’t want to ask so we’ll just call her Nora.

“If you give me those, Jonah will bag for you.” She said, referring simultaneously to the reusable sacks I always take and to the bearded young man who had appeared at the end of her counter.

I complied and Nora began to tally up my purchases and slide them to Jonah who placed them into the bags.

“Could I also get the senior discount?” I asked as she continued.

“Of course.”

From my right I heard Jonah say to someone behind me, “I can take you on that register down there,” leaving the counter littered with the remaining items.

“I bet you feel abandoned now,” I joked to Nora.

“Yes, well, it happens all the time, feeding my neurosis, and yet – I keep coming back.” a wry grin playing across her lips.

“Everyone’s a little neurotic.”

“I suppose.” She said as the register made a loud “Boing!” indicating that the skew on the item hadn’t properly registered.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to be completely sure of yourself? There’d be no challenges.”

Brightening a bit, “Challenges are good,” she replied.

A young woman who was multiply tattooed and pierced had materialized to replace the unfaithful Jonah, added. “Yeah, and most of those people are jerks!”

“Do you want this beer in a bag?” Nora asked referring to the six pack of Belhaven I had placed on the conveyer.

“Nah, I’m just going to drink it in the parking lot.”

“Hah,” Her laugh erupted as if suppressed just under the surface. “You’re awake for this time of day – come through my line anytime!”

Home by Another Way

Someone always knows another way to get you where you’re going. It’s always shorter, faster, less “trafficky,” or in some way better than the route you foolishly chose.

In our most recent example some people at a party in Bridgewater – nearly all flatlanders*- knew a way through the woods that would get us back to our campground in Plymouth more efficiently than the boring, albeit paved, way that had gotten us there.

At the end of the party or rather, at the point when my party gene receded, we made our good byes and humored our hosts by attempting to find the suggested road. We did this in spite of mention of a five-way intersection and promises that “you can’t miss it.”

We missed the five-way intersection; unless a couple of abandoned logging roads count. The road twisted up through a stand of hardwoods and narrowed as the height of the grass at its middle increased. At the top of a steep incline the road leveled and widened a bit and the land that abutted it changed to pasture.

Our headlights caught a pair of eyes and I came to a quick stop that drew a cloud of dust around the car. A large doe looked at us from where she had been feeding at the base of a gnarly apple tree. Across the road from her, another smaller deer bounded into the pasture and disappeared into a flash of white. The doe, transfixed by our lights, looked in our direction for a few seconds before leaping a small ditch and disappearing in the opposite direction.

We started up again and a few minutes later, the road became paved.

“This is a good sign.” I said to Renée who agreed.

Shortly after that, the road became gravel again.

I was beginning to suspect we would spend what remained of the night exploring the maze of roads that checkered the woods between Bridgewater and Plymouth. At about the point where suspicion was turning into despair a cemetery appeared at the right side of the road.

“I know where we are! That’s Coolidge’s grave.”

“I think you’re right,” Renée answered.

Buoyed by the landmark we continued down the road that I knew intersected Route 100 and that would take us to Coolidge State Park and our camper.

“Gives new meaning to the phrase “Keep cool with Coolidge,” we agreed.


*Anyone not from Vermont – even if it’s Colorado. This is only relevant because in this case the flatlanders were, for the most part, transplanted from New York or New Jersey, capital of the “another way” school.