or, how my love for Stephen Trapp augments my patience for flying Southwest, which is sort of like taking a Chinatown bus that flies.
allow me one brief interdiction of pure bitching. okay, two.
one: flying has become so commonplace and convoluted with security measures that it no longer even mildly borders on a pleasant experience. don’t get me wrong: you get what you pay for. back in the days when my grandfather was an impeccably dressed flight attendant for Eastern Airlines, working alongside Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, only the creme de la creme actually had the opportunity to fly, and you’d never be caught dead on a plane without a coat and hat. maybe this is why i always shower and shave and dress cleanly whenever i get on a plane. or maybe it’s because i’m afraid (read: likelihood = high) that i’ll be pinpointed as a potential terrorist and brought into a little glass room and strip searched by college kids with a security clearance lower than my own.
no joke. TSA people are either terrififying (good Lord, what will they do if they find my well-hidden sunscreen?) or terrifyingly rude assholes:
TSA guy: where’s your hair gel at, boss?
me: beg your pardon?
TSA fucker: your hair gel, slick. where is it?
me: i don’t use hair gel, baldie.
in retrospect, this was not the wisest thing to say; “baldie,” as we would have it, had his hands on all my earthly possessions. i’m just glad philly airport gives out zip loc bags for your miniature toiletries.
two:
question: what good are airplane seatbelts, when your skinny ass fits snugly into the micro-seat so generously designed for one person?
answer: keeps us from crashing.
good enough.
we are one hour late on the way to Nashville via Raleigh/Durham. my cousin Chris down in Austin tells me he’s moving to L.A. on the 24th. beginning to wonder if i shouldn’t hitch a ride, though i haven’t even boarded a train yet. also found out that Bonaroo is this weekend down in the Smoky Mountains. maybe i can convince Steve-O to play hooky and take a field trip.
said goodbye to my 92 year-old grandfather yesterday. i feel doubly bad as this weekend is father’s day. he’s at Lourdes hospital in Camden – he’s been in and out of hospitals and rehab centers for three weeks now as they flail about trying to figure out what’s wrong with him. he’s almost had enough. i can see it in his eyes – he’s done. i’m not sure his children have detected the same. i stalled this trip mainly to stick around and see him a few more times, since i don’t know when i’ll be coming back and what shape he’ll be in. he’s vehemently exhausted, but before now that hasn’t kept him from recanting his visitors with a story from 1923 in vivid detail.
but when i saw him yesterday, he looked a different man – a man ready to go home. he is tired and alone and knows he has lived a long and happy life. he seems not to have regrets, and least none that he’ll let on. lying and staring into space he submits to the ongoing battery of pricks and pokes like someone who is just going through the motions.
yet when i see him, he smiles and squeezes my hand. i can feel his plentiful resilient strength. i tell him i’m taking a train across the country, and he smiles as his eyes go wide. “By yourself?” he asks. i nod. he wants to come with me. “he’s taking a train across the country,” he tries to tell the nurses, as they wheel him out for another catscan.
i let go of his hand and i don’t say goodbye. i feel as if i’ve made him proud. i know now is the time to go; no more stalling. i’m leaving.
why the train is better
