LAUNCH THE EXTENSIVE ITINERARIES OF SEP/OCT '01
STRUGGLE THROUGH AIRPORTS WITH OVERWEIGHT AND
EXCESS BAGGAGE WITH A TOUCH OF INTERNATIONALISM
TO BEGIN THE FIRST PHASE---
GRAMEC, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Sep. 11, 2001
I have made it! I have concluded whatever would be getting done in Derwood in domestic and GW office chores, and then gone down to the OIT office to get the Laptop to function at least so long as it is plugged in, and have run out to the street and flagged down a nice black fellow from North Carolina with an old Oldsmobile station wagon taxi, and let him into the parking structure to load up the heavy multiple bags---three for check in and three for carry-on-as illicit as can be imagined. I made it to and through the curbside check-in at DCA that old fashioned way---cash. Perhaps because of my departure experiences at Kamchatka I have learned that appreciation is valued in currency, and I handed out wads of it, first to the taxi driver, then in banter with the curbside check-in agent whom, I learned was from Monrovia Liberia. I got him to check the big box of medicines forwarded to me by Meg Irwin that was packed for Ladakh but never reached her in time, so she mailed it to me, with $12.00 stamps stuck all over it. So, I now have this very large moving van box of unknown medicines in contents, along with my new and enormous duffel bag with "modular" component parts-some for family at home in Grand Rapids, some for GRAMEC presentations and the hospitals and settings in Michigan, some for Boston and the Halsted Society, and some for New Hampshire and the foreshortened fall holiday weekend with the Harkens.
Now, in the Harkens' components, I take out the backpack and several items
checked inside the main duffel bag, then have them take all that is in the big
duffel to Denver-along with the separate rifle case. This is for the elk hunt.
But I will also have slides and suits and formal presentations for the ACS that
they will carry to New Orleans where we will rendezvous on my direct return
form Nepal. I had been so very happy last week when my prize protégé
student Elizabeth Yellen volunteered to help by carrying the two MAP packs of
medicines for Nepal while flying up to Boston, (where she will be painting her
boyfriend's house as she prepares for her pediatric NICU rotation there later
and awaits the letter of recommendation I have sent her ERAS (Electronic Residency
Application System) applications to residency. That means I will have those
two boxes to check in in addition to the two very large bags I will be down
to by the time I give off the two bags (one being the duffel with the New Orleans
suits and slides bag inside it, and the other being the rifle case) to the harkens,
and I have already got an electronically forwarde3d permission for excess baggage
for Lufthansa flight from BOS through FRA to DEL, and an operative of Ravi's
to meet me in Delhi to take the Nepal bags and hold them for my return to Delhi
after I have completed Spiti and take off form there to Kathmandu. Now, if only
I can get all of this bag and baggage checked in and coordinated through to
each segment's final destination!
GETTING ME AND MY (EXCESS) BAGS TO DCA
AND ALL CHECKED IN FOR MICHIGAN AND BOSTON
The first tricky part was getting the taxi in and out of GWU and over to DCA,
and that worked. Then I asked the fellow at curbside check-in if I could check
two bags with him there (both oversized) as I chatted with him about Liberia.
He reluctantly did so, and I gave him some folding money as he was considering
an exemption as he put the "Heavy" tags on each. I then ran around
to the Premier U/A check-in to personally check in the rifle case with the necessary
tag to be locked inside assuring that it is unloaded. The fellow at the desk
was Ethiopian and I gave him my few Amharic words and talked about Soddo, Gondor
Nepal and Addis and the possibilities I might be going there and that one or
more of my students certainly would be. He seemed pleased until he had checked
in the rifle case with its tag and checked to see what I had already had entered
into the computer from the curbside check.
He checked the computer, and found I already had two bags checked in, and objected, as I mumbled about having to take the gun case out of the duffel bag in order to bring it around to show it to him to check it in. He was uncertain and was calling his supervisor, when the supervisor called out to each of the check-in clerks-"Attention! I have something to say to you each that is important, so if you will all leave off what you are doing right now and come over here with me…" Each ticketing agent left his and her customers standing unattended, and came back after a few whispered words looking stunned. My fellow was no longer talking about his family in Ethiopia as he had just before and how he will be making his first trip back to Addis Ababa in the 12 years he has lived in the US. He looked at me as though he had not seen me before, and asked, "Now what is it that we are asking? "
I said, "You were just checking in my case here, and I had inserted the 'unloaded tag' into the locked case as you had requested."
"Oh, yes!" he said, and put a tag on it and put it on the conveyor belt looking distracted and did not say goodbye or tell me the gate but stared for a while and then left his position as I walked quickly toward the gate hoping that no one noted that I had three carryon items-my summit backpack, the heavy running bag with the computer and all the recording and camera equipment in it, and a hanging suit bag, which also had slide sheets in it. I got through the X-Ray, and ran on down to Gate 29, and took off my now wet suit coat, since the flight was about to board, and I could just have time enough to try to plug in the laptop to see if I could charge it up for the brief flight to Chicago, since there would be insufficient layover time in ORD to do anything but run with my three carryon bags to the GRR gate where I would be expected, both by GRAMEC and by Martheen and Don.
The fellow sitting next to the electric outlet, where I went against the north facing glass wall was very generous and offered to move three seats down so I could reach the plug-in. They had just called the First Class and Premier group with their cards exhibited to board, and I had Premier Seat 6-A, so I was shutting down the computer, standing against the north glass wall looking up across the runway toward the Pentagon, as I gathered my armful of carry-on things and handed my ticket to the gate agent who fed it into the machine that chops off all but the stub. I had one foot on the Jetway and one arm on the glass wall steadying me from my carry-on unbalanced weight and my strained pyriformis on the left side from the recent long run with Joe. As she smiled at me, I looked across the runway and said-"Oh, dear! Look at that plane flying so low and banked over on its side!"
AN UNPARALLED CATASTROPHE
IN MY LIFETIME,
THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING
The smile stopped and she said "Oh, my God!" and threw her hands-with my ticket, to her face.
Then it happened.
And the world will not ever be the same again.