flying

I flew Delta from LAX to Minneapolis to Hartford . Red eye special . Good arrival time for my friend to pick me up , except that I got confused on the day . The day I flew in he had a gig and had to pick me up a little later . I waited in an airport bar and had a couple of expensive airport beers ,  local Connecticut stuff .

Now I’m home again . Same flight in reverse , except that this time it wasn’t a red eye .

Three hours in Minneapolis . Coming in from L.A. , I saw snow covering the parking structures outside . On the return trip , two weeks later ,  no snow . The airport is stretched out along endless concourses . Concourses . When do you walk concourses  outside of airports ? Am I missing something ? There are moving sidewalks and a tram .  Endless concourses . Food courts . Shops .  WiFi access .

I had a few mini-bottles of Scotch in my carry-on bag . They’re allowed . My friend Willie told me that last year . He gave me a couple of them to test his statement . No problem .  I showed them to the snoops , thinking that they might confiscate them . No . Willie was right .

To order the same shot of Scotch during the flight would have cost me seven dollars , I think . Drinking one of the bottles during the flight I felt as if I were now out of the red , outsmarting Delta , pushing the envelope . The little bottles cost only 99 cents in Connecticut .  If I had had a few more mini-bottles I’d be sitting pretty , ahead of the game , actually beginning to show a profit . Well , almost   .

I once went from Berlin to London on Ryan Airlines . Ryan , if I remember correctly ,was the airline that seriously considered charging a fee to use the restroom . Nice .I would have gone broke .  I got to the Berlin Airport , Freuninggulingen ……., no Shaeuftshaffen ……. no Sheinifeld ? , Shoenefeld ? , at six in the morning . I had come from Poland by taxi that morning . Got there overly early , as is my way .

I was second in line . We were the only two customers to have arrived so early for the flight .  I had one bag to check . There were two conveyor belts moving luggage along : to London  and to  Ankara . I didn’t see the clerk put my lonely bag on the Ankara belt . I should have been watching , I guess . When I got to London I had no clothes . 10 days in England and no  clothes other than what I was wearing . I won’t tell you the whole sad story . My bag met me in London on the 10th day , having , I assume , enjoyed its own vacation in Turkey . We flew back to Berlin together , but we didn’t talk to each other the entire flight .

Another Berlin to London flight on British Airways was exciting after the pilot announced  over the scratchy PA system that he thought the landing gear was stuck . We were going to have to go in on our shiney sleek aluminum belly . The pilot’s voice was almost inaudible and he had a heavy English accent . One of the many . Dorset , maybe . Rs everywhere . Like old movie pirates :  Aarrh , matey ! Wharr yer headin’ ? Shiver me timbers !  Emarrgency vehicles aarrh be preparrhin’ fer arrh landin’  . Aarh.

The plane was full of Germans . I , a native English speaker , was barely getting what the pilot was saying . I didn’t think that many of the Germans got much of it . But , on the other hand , maybe they had learned English from the English . Good possibility that they understood a lot more than I did , now that I think of it .

When we approached Gatwick , or was it Heathrow ? , the emergency vehicles were lined up along the runway . There were plenty of them : fire trucks , ambulances , police , hearses . Well , maybe not hearses .   I had confidence in the pilot and the plane . I don’t think anyone else in the plane could say the same , judging by their panicked expressions . Those pilots , highly trained ,  could slide it in on its fusilage belly .

Buckle your seat belt ; it’s gonna be a bumpy ride . 

But the landing gear came down and we all rolled to a stop .  Anticlimatic . I’m not complaining .  Billy Bob Thornton said ,” I’m not afraid of flying . I’m afraid of crashing . ”   That about sums it up .

About these English accents :

Ada and I flew from LAX to London once and I had arranged , in advance ,a rental car from the airport . I never sleep on flights and by the time we reached the car rental desk in London I was exhausted . I couldn’t , for the life of me , understand what the English girl at the counter was telling me . It was a Friday . I thought that she was telling me that my car wouldn’t be available until Monday . She wasn’t , of course . She was trying to tell me that my car would be a Mondeo .  I was losing my temper .

” Not Monday !” I said . ” Now “

Ada had to translate . Mediate . Ada grew up in Poland .

” Tell him…” the English girl would say .

” Tell her ….” I would say .

Oh.  The car is called Mondeo. Nothing about Monday . It’s waiting for us . Oh . O.K. Why didn’t she say so ?

I don’t mind flying much . Once in awhile . It’s quick once you leave the ground .  Gets you places you might not otherwise go . Somewhat uncomfortable . Never enough leg room . And they always remind you how a seat belt works ; they show you ; give a demonstration . That comes in handy because sometimes , if you haven’t used one in a few hours , you might have forgotten .

Sometimes you should bring along an English-American dictionary , or , at least a phrase book . Several English speakers from various corners of the earth learned English English from the English . Beware .  And consider bringing  some little bottles of booze . If nothing else , it gives you a sense that you’re getting away with something .  Even if you’re not a drinker bring some  —– trade one  for a few more tiny bags of peanuts or pretzels . If you ride Ryan Air , bribe the stewardess to use the head without paying the fee . Endless possibilities . Endless.

cartoons

veterans day

even a few more cartoons

ephemera

cartoons again

Screenshot

tickets

I was on my way to the YMCA to swim a few mornings ago , just driving along a quiet road , minding my own business , when I saw the flashing lights of a police car behind me . No one else was around . Apparently , I had not come to a complete stop at the stop sign , so he wrote me a ticket .

I had received a ticket about seven or eight years ago for speeding . I was coming down from the mountain in the morning . No one else was around . Except the cop , of course . He wrote me a ticket . I guess that they don’t let people off with a warning any more . Not me , at least .

They don’t tell you how much the ticket will cost you . You’ve got to wait a few weeks , at least , to find out the unfortunate details. The speeding ticket was quite expensive , but I decided to pay it and get it out of the way . I don’t get many tickets . What I hadn’t considered was that my car insurance would go up . For five years ! Yeah , that was an expensive ticket .

I could have gone to traffic school and get the thing off my record . I notice on this ticket that I’ve got to pay the fine at any rate and to pay whatever the traffic school charges , but I should have done that last time , too . I’ll go to traffic school this time . With luck I might even be able to attend on line , but we’ll see .

When I was in my early twenties I got a ticket for an illegal U-turn. I was going up a steep hill. The hill leveled off at the top and up there I did my turn . By chance , a cop was driving up the hill too . When I was at the top he was at the bottom. When the road leveled off and zi did my turn I could not be seen by someone coming up the hill . The cop didn’t see me do my illegal U-turn . Nevertheless , as I was slowly going down the hill he leaned out his window and told me to pull over . He wrote me a ticket .

Well , I could have done a three-point legal turn ! Between you and me I did an illegal turn , but he hadn’t observed me do it . So I decided to take it to traffic court and fight the ticket . On a technicality .

The judge that day seemed to be having fun . One defendant he would nail with a fine and the next he would have mercy on . They were all traffic tickets , not much money in those days , so it was not a life-and-death situation . The judge stopped one guy whose turn it was before he could launch his defense . He had a bundle of manila folders under his arm .

” Is that your evidence ? ” the judge asked.

” Yes, your honor.”

The guy had four or five people standing with him .

” Are those your witnesses ?”

” Yes , your honor .”

” Case dismissed ,” the judge said .
” But I want to be heard ! , ” the guy said , indignantly.

” Case dismissed ,” the judge said . ” You win. Now get out !”

One young guy was fighting a parking ticket for something like a No Parking between 4:00 and 7:00 on Thursdays . His defense was that he had just moved down from San Francisco and he wasn’t used to that kind of a sign . It seemed like a bad dense anyway , but the judge had a chance to have a little more fun .

” Young man , ” the judge said , ” I lived in San Francisco for forty-five years . I just moved down here about two years ago For at least forty of those forty-five years they’ve had that exact same sign up there .”

At this point the poor defendant was physically shrinking . His head was bowed down . He probably wanted to disappear . Then the judge said this :

” That’s the worst excuse I’ve heard all day .” He hesitated a bit for effect . ” Case dismissed,” he said .

So I was sitting there watching and listening . I was intimidated by the capriciousness of the proceeding , and I chickened out . I opted for traffic school instead of arguing my case before the judge .

I think I had to attend six sessions . This was in the early 1970s. A retired detectrive showed us films of automobile accidents . They were all vehicles from the 1950s . Old films of horrible wrecks . It was more oddly entertaining than educational I have to admit . I remember that he suggested that we either have to car windows all the way up or all the way down , because people have been seriously hurt by half-opened windows. Okay , I remember thinking at the time . Okay. That was the quality of his advice . But I did it and got the ticket off of my driving record . I don’t think that I paid the ticket at that time , either .

After getting the ticket a few mornings ago , I continued to the YMCA . Near there , a crew were painting lines on the road . They had a liberal number of highway cones placed to keep people from driving over the paint . I recognized the small plastic signs on some of the cones . That is to say , I met the man who got a patent for the two jagged slits that allow the signs to attach to the cones . No longer would separate stands be needed for each sign .

I’m assuming he’s long-retired by now and I know that he has made a fortune on the idea . Good for him . He could afford to pay a traffic ticket , I think . He would probably not go to traffic school ; but who knows .

plus

I went over to the Home Depot a few days ago , mainly to buy contractor trash bags , but I ended up with a few other items , of course . Not too much . I had a rolling shopping cart where I put the heavy package of trash bags . I had a few items in the little shelf on the cart and a few items next to the trash bags in the main part of the cart .

When I unloaded the cart into my car I forgot to unload a few small items that were on the shelf of the cart . I didn’t realize this , of course , until I got home and started to unload the car . I hate to go back over the same territory ; I really do ; but I decided to go back to the store to check if the same cart was still with the other carts hanging out in the parking lot . The items might still be where I left them .

The main item I’d miss was a pair of cheap sun glasses . I decided that I might have to re-buy glasses if the ones I’d already bought were not there . I needed a pair of sunglasses and these fit the bill .

At any rate , I arrived back at the Home Depot parking lot and checked the carts . No luck. The items that I’d left there were no longer there and not waiting for me to retrieve them . So I went into the store. The clerk who had waited on me was still at her station . Who knows if she remembered me or not . So many customers file through I wouldn’t expect her to recognize me . I asked her if the store had a lost-and-found .

I told her about leaving the sun glasses . She asked if that was all . Well , no , there was a package of seeds , too . She had the cart right there with all of the items that I had left . I’d already forgotten about the mouse trap and the throw-away paint brush . When I saw them all there I showed her the receipt and remembered that I had actually left all of those things in the cart .

” A customer brought them in , ” she said . I told the clerk that it’s nice to know there are still honest people in the world .

Well , that’s my story today . Although it is a tiny incident in the overall scheme of things , that experience restored my faith in humanity . I was telling the story to my friend Bill , who said that he thought 99% of people were good people . I agreed in principle . I might argue that the 99% is a bit high ; but , in general , yeah , most people are good people out to treat one another kindly and to try to do what is right . I told Bill that I might adjust his estimate down to about 90% , but we agreed in principle .

Sometimes we get bogged down in the negatives and forget to appreciate the positives . When little reminders happen , it’s nice .