Fright Of Flight

I have never wanted to be one of those people, but I guess I am. You know the type, the ones who need special attention almost constantly. I'm a grown-man, for god's sake. Why do I act like a baby?

In my mental self-image, I'm remarkably self-sufficient and, at times, amazingly brave. I'm wrong, though; I usually am. Still, brave is how I'd prefer to be considered. So humor me. I'm mostly harmless; I promise.

I'd be remiss if I didn't admit to one, overwhelming trepidation. I dread it more than getting up before dawn to go to work. That's the experience of flying on a commercial airline, a.k.a sitting in a space smaller than a linen closet for a couple of hours, with seat belt fastened just in case 'we' experience unexpected turbulence.

Recently, I needed to fly. Time dictated the necessity. It always does. I didn't want to spend all of my vacation riding a bus north to spend only one day with my two daughters in Illinois, and then riding a bus back home. Enduring the trauma of flight allowed me to spend a couple more precious days with them.

* * * *

I recall my first few experiences with flying. When I was a kid, the flight attendants were generally female; they were called stewardesses back in the pre-politically-correct day. I'm not sure why calling a male flight attendant a steward was ever in anyway demeaning or wrong. I suppose in the interest of equality between the sexes we have to neuter-down just about every job that has ever been gender specific. If it advances equality in the workplace, I'm all for it. If it doesn't equalize the pay differential between males and females, what's a job title worth to anyone?

As I recall, stewardesses tended to be very kind and very pretty, especially to a wide-eyed little boy.

The first time I ever flew was in a helicopter. Imagine that! Being a few thousand feet up in the air and able to look straight down through the bottom of a bubble canopy quickly established the awareness of my acrophobia.

The second time I flew was in a turbo-prop airplane. It was a chartered flight in support of a tour of the manufacturing facilities of a farm equipment manufacturer, Massey-Ferguson. My father, who was a farmer, used Massey-Ferguson equipment almost exclusively.

The flight began in Columbus, Ohio. At the time, that was a really big city to me, even though its population was around 500,000. I lived in a farmhouse surrounded by cornfields. It was exactly two miles from nowhere, which was a small town, population one thousand seven hundred and three. So a city of a half million was huge.

Our trip was to eventually reach Toronto, Ontario. There was a brief stay in Detroit, Michigan to tour a foundry that made castings used in all Massey-Ferguson farm equipment.

Except for some visits with relatives in neighboring Kentucky, I was never  before outside of the State of Ohio. So landing in Michigan established new territory for my personal explorations on this vast planet. When we left Detroit to fly to Toronto, a greater first was established. I was going to land in a different country!

At the time, Canada and the US enjoyed an extremely open, common border. I believe it was the world's longest shared border between two sovereign nations that was virtually unguarded. For one thing, I didn't need a passport. That made some sort of sense to me, as a twelve-year-old. After all, the people of Canada were a lot like Americans. We all spoke English - for the most part, anyway. I'd heard in school that in Quebec they also spoke French. Fortunately we were going to Ontario. But I expected that even in Quebec I could find someone who spoke English. That was important to me because I didn't know anything but English. Despite over a decade of experience living in a rural Midwestern American setting, I barely spoke what other native speakers might recognize as English, but I called it that. 

You see my folks were hillbillies. Where I grew up in Ohio was relatively flat land, so maybe that might moderate the 'hill' part of that equation a bit, but still, my parents were hicks. On multiple choice English grammar tests, I could usually eliminate at least two of the suggested answers by asking myself whether my parents might say those things. 

The two-day adventure in Canada exposed me to many things. At the restaurant in the lakeside hotel where we stayed, I first experienced the delight of eating a few slices of roast beef, served rare. My mother had always assumed that I liked my meat prepared in the same way she preferred, well done. That became one of my many deviations from my mother's tastes.

Money had different values depending on what side of the border you were on. At that time, the Canadian dollar was valued at ninety-six cents American. Coins were handled interchangeably and without quibble because of the negligible valuation difference, but whenever something reached or exceeded a dollar in value, the international exchange rate came into play.

I wanted to keep some Canadian money to take home as souvenirs. I still preferred American money. To a twelve-year-old in 1968, four cents was still a lot of money to lose in every transaction. As I recall, that was the sales tax rate in Ohio. It mattered. My dad allowed me to save one Canadian dollar note, a five, and whatever pocket change I had left, which, for the record was: five pennies, two nickels, four dimes and three quarters.

When I returned home, I was a seasoned world traveler! I'd been to far away places and had the physical evidence of money from another country to show for it!

My fifth grade teacher had allowed me a furlough for a few days to enjoy my trip. Of course, the backside of that liberation was an obligation to report back to classmates on my experiences. I was very shy, so standing before the twenty-five or so other kids in my classroom to share my experiences was painful and traumatic. Still, it was well worth getting the time off from school. After the  presentation, I made certain I got all the Canadian coins and bills back.

* * * *

My subsequent flying experiences have never been comfortable. I served in the United States Air Force, irony of all ironies. For someone who hates flying as much as I do, how does serving in the Air Force make any sense? By that time I had logged several thousands of miles in the air as a commercial airline passenger. I'd come to a point of harmony with the universe about flying. But I assure you; I never enjoyed a moment of any of those flights. Gratefully, what I did for the Air Force usually required me to keep two feet planted firmly on the ground. But every time I have ever flown, it was because I had to be somewhere at a given time. Otherwise, I would gladly ride a train, a bus, a car, a bike or walk.

* * * *

For my aforementioned recent vacation, I needed to visit two of my three children, my daughters who share an apartment in Illinois. The elder of the two, Amanda is a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. My baby is a freelance artist who also works as a cake decorator in the bakery at a grocery store. My girls share the apartment with Amanda's fiancee, Marcos. They invited me to visit them for a week, something that I really wanted to do, despite the logistical and temporal concerns.

Getting time off from work has very often been the issue. Despite how bad I am at doing my job - judging from my annual evaluations - I appear to be indispensable in some ways. I guess it's because I'm trusted to carry keys that open doors for people who need to remove things from secured areas. Or it could be my body is still warm, has a pulse and, when tested, my breath will fog a mirror. Also, I had the least seniority with the company so everyone else was permitted to take vacation time ahead of me, despite any tentative plans I had made.  

Finally, at the end of January, the stars and planets properly aligned so the powers that be signed off on a week's paid vacation. Unfortunately, going north to see my girls still involved flying.

It had been years since I'd last flown. Certainly, it was well before the tragic events of 9/11. I knew some of the restrictions and regulations. My kids have flown often enough in the interim. I have taken them to the airport and picked them up. I knew, for example, it is no longer possible to greet someone at the arrival gate. The welcome home greeting party must wait outside of the Transportation Security Agency's checkpoints.

Thank you Osama Bin Laden for the destruction of a pretty good tradition. May a hundred camels piss on your tent and defecate on your fetid corpse to bar you from ever entering the realm of the 77 virgins!

In advance of the flight, my son warned me that the pocketknife I carry everywhere, the one Sarah bought for me when she was in Switzerland, would be confiscated if I tried carrying it onto a plane. So, I left it at home. I also left my toenail and fingernail clippers behind. No biggy; I never carry them with me anyway. Some of the things my son told me were banned from an airplane are really kind of silly. If the airways are safer, oh well.

After dropping me off curbside in front of Delta Airlines counters at Orlando International, my son, Rob asked me if I would be okay.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Thank you for getting up early to give me a ride."

"Call me if there is any change in your arrival time when you come back."

"No problem."

I really believed I had everything completely under control. I was certain I handled the automated check in exactly per instructions. But I had to return to print my boarding passes. The print out neglected to state that. Who knew you need a boarding pass to get through the security checkpoint? Last time I flew you got your boarding passes at the gate. 

As I was staying for only a few days, I brought carry-on luggage only. At the security checkpoint, I stripped down, becoming a belt-less, shoeless entity. The screening process the Orlando version of the Transportation Security Agency operates doesn't rely on metal detectors. I was relieved when they told me my pacemaker was probably not an issue anymore. However, my backpack was. They asked permission to open it and once I consented, they basically ransacked its contents, seeking out a normal sized tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. They confiscated both.

My toothpaste tube exceeded regulations for the size that was allowable in carry-on luggage. I'm not sure what prompted them to seize the toothbrush. Maybe they know something about hijacking a plane with a toothbrush that I don't. After all, it is what they do, right?

As I stood there in dumbfounded shock, I imagined a guy foaming at the mouth, from recently brushing, brandishing a dripping toothbrush as a weapon to seize control of a jetliner. I mean, how can you really tell if a toothbrush is cocked and loaded? I had no idea sticking a dentifrice into my mouth on the head of a toothbrush was so dangerous. Could it really down an airliner? If I ever knew that a toothbrush was a deadly weapon, I could have easily vanquished many of the bullies that tormented me in grade school.

"Take that", he said with bristles bared.

Oh wait, shooting your mouth off takes on an entirely different meaning, now doesn't it?

Sir, please put the toothbrush down and slowly step away. No one will get hurt.

Seriously, for all the good they do in granting us the peace of mind to fly, in this instance, I feel the TSA stepped over the line. Will someone with a sense of reality and specific knowledge throttle them back about toothpaste and toothbrushes? Had I protested on site, I know I would have been detained and would have missed my flight. They have that authority. All of it was over a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. Who knew they were so dangerous?

Wait! Did I miss my fifteen-minute window of fame? I could have made a scene and even been on the news. The media circus would have arrived while I was in holding bound for jail, all about toothpaste, a toothbrush and my insistence about my rights as a human being and an American citizen.

Obviously, I'd be an immediate suspect! I'm cue ball white. I'm so white I glow in the dark. I sunburn whenever I walk past a picture of the sunset. I don't fit the expected profile for a hijacker. But damned if I wasn't challenged!

Anyway, like anyone with any intelligence in such a situation, and knowing that I needed to get somewhere, I acquiesced on my rights and tolerated the invasion of my privacy and confiscation of personal property, namely one tube of mint flavored Crest and a medium bristle toothbrush. But I felt wronged. We're seizing toothpaste and toothbrushes for fear of a hijacking?

Can someone reel me in on this and explain it? If not, can someone in Washington DC see how insidious the potential for this is? I mean, in my hood, - yes, I live in a hood; it's the economy - if I pulled out a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in self-defense against a knife or gun, I'd be dead. But damn, if I couldn't have downed an airliner with those same tools!

* * * *

You know what? It was a good vacation, overall. I love my daughters very much and spending time with them was what mattered most. They are so much like me and yet completely unique, even from one another. You have to respect human genetics! With every birth you have a new revelation in the possibilities of human life, someone who has never before been and will never again be. My daughters are a lot like my ex-wife and me, but there is always another part of each of them that is unique. I don't pretend to know how that works, but it's real and perceivable.

Obviously, I made it back home; thank God, providence, or whatever you may believe in. I will say that the flight attendants were efficient, friendly and effective in their roles throughout my flight experiences. I really felt like they cared about what they were doing. One of the two male flight attendants seemed to be obsessed with the safety of a single passenger who had to go to the restroom while the plane was in final approach. It was a violation but he allowed it and suffered with the decision every moment until she was safely in her seat, just before the plane actually touched down.

I guess when you ride a plane with other humans you see how self-centered and ape-like we can be. What an asinine move, getting up during final approach and going to take a tinkle? The silly girl reached her seat exactly thirty-seconds before the landing gear touched the runway, oblivious to the fact that at the velocity the plane still maintained, in the event of a sudden stop, her body would respond as if it weighed about ten-thousand pounds, likely killing or maiming many other passengers in the process before coming to a complete and, I do mean, dead rest.

Although we often pay half-hearted attention to the pre-fight instruction of our flight attendants, they are telling us the truth. All that any of us want is to have a safe flight.

For the record, I still hate flying and always will. But on this occasion, I had good flights to and from Chicago's O'Hare International. It restored my faith in commercial aviation, at least until my next fright flight.

E