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
