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My Stevie

By Penguin Scott
(photos not by PenguinScott)

The first time I noticed her, she was wearing a flowing red dress while lying on a settee on a sand dune in the desert. I couldn’t figure out why. It was one of the early summers of my teens. MTV was king. The song was catchy, but the blonde in the desert is what caught my attention; she was some sort of goddess to me. She was sexy, a feminine power that stirred feelings within me. I wasn’t so much confused as to why she was on a settee in the desert; music videos rarely made much sense. What had me was why she was in the video to begin with. She wasn’t singing in the “Hold Me” video and she seemed more than just a model. I didn’t know much about the band; I’d only heard the name.

Then there was “Gypsy”. This time, it was the voice which drew me in. Oh, that voice- that otherworldly voice; unique, strange, distinct and magical. I was captivated by her gypsy visage, the lace and by her smile. I was still confused about the two videos. In this one, she sang, and the other members were silent. Until then, the concept of multiple singers in one band was new to me. But I liked it. And I was hooked. The band was Fleetwood Mac. That’s fine and well. But I loved that sexy woman in the red dress from the desert. I’m a Stevie Nicks fan!

One morning at my home in Dallas, not long after the flurry of videos from their 1982 Mirage album with “Gypsy” and “Hold Me”, I saw an ad in the paper for an upcoming concert. I was a freshman in high school and a solo Stevie Nicks was touring in support of her Wild Heart album. I made a comment to my father and his girlfriend about wishing that I could go. He said that I should. It hadn’t occurred to me that going was an option. I wasn’t asking if I “could,” I was just wishing out loud.

At the concert, I was mesmerized. She was so twirly, so strong yet fragile. Her songs spoke to me. Her ballads made boats of my eyes as tears welled up. This was her second solo album, so I was able to get fully acquainted with Stevie through her first solo album, 1981’s Bella Donna, as well as The Wild Heart. I listened to them over and over again. And then at a backyard barbeque at a cousin’s house, I mentioned my concert experience and was introduced to Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s album from 1977. He mentioned how much he loved “Rhiannon”. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he got the album and let me listen. It was like I’d never considered that there was more music from earlier than Mirage. Now I was able to start collecting all the older Fleetwood Mac albums as well.

I spent many hours during high school listening to Stevie, either in her solo endeavors, or with Fleetwood Mac. I’d sing along loudly in my car driving to school. I’d listen to her albums through headphones on my father’s fancy stereo system. And I’d sing her songs to myself walking from one class to the next. I always bought her albums the day they released. When The Other Side of the Mirror was released, I was visiting my maternal grandparents in a small town in the Texas panhandle. There was really only one store in town that sold CDs, so there I was, probably the only person in town buying it so early. I got home only to realize that my grandparents didn’t own a CD player. It was 1989, so I didn’t have one with me. All I could do was read the lyrics printed on the booklet. By the time I actually heard the songs I was very familiar with them.

In 1985, she released Rock a Little. I got the album the day it was released and rushed home. I put it on the turntable and grabbed the headphones and studied the lyrics as the songs came and went. By the time I went to bed that night, I’d heard it 4 times! Wanting to know as much as I could, I found out that some of the tracks may have been recorded in Dallas. In fact, it seemed that Stevie had quite a few Dallas connections. She supposedly owned part of a club near downtown. She had friends and working partners in the area. I searched for names and addresses and on weekends, I’d drive around town looking for the homes of these people. Not that I would have bothered them; I was simply thirsty for as much information as possible, and knowing where they lived was information. I stopped by the night club, which seemed as mysterious as she was, fronted by a huge grey curtain and red velvet ropes on the sweeping steps leading to the entry. It must have been magical inside, but it was closed on this early afternoon, and I was too young to be allowed inside.

I never met anyone at the homes I tried to scope out, if they actually were the homes of the people I thought might be connected to her. I was a silly high school boy and wound up exploring some of the nicer parts of Dallas for my efforts. But with my connections in the hotel world of the greater Dallas Metroplex, I would find out where she was staying when she was in town for concerts. I recall driving quite a distance to her hotel near DFW airport after a concert. I stalked the hotel from the parking lot searching for activity in any of the rooms that might indicate which was hers. It was after midnight, after all, so it was easy to pinpoint the rooms with their lights on. I’d heard stories that she stayed up all night and slept during the day, so I knew she’d be up there. Eventually, I ventured into the hotel, just to scope it out. I didn’t see my Stevie, but as the hotel bar closed down, I spied Waddy Wachtel, her band’s guitarist, heading up to his room. I said hi and great show. He thanked me. I was star struck and wasn’t able to get anything else out of my mouth.

Years later, while living in Houston, I earned money working for a concert security company. When Stevie came to town for her Other Side of the Mirror tour, I found out not only which hotel she was in, but which room as well. Armed with a yellow rose and note wishing her a great show, I nervously knocked on the door. A woman answered. I introduced myself as a huge fan and asked if she would procure my flower and note to Stevie. She said that she would, as the door closed and I looked inside the room, I could see a pair of women’s legs crossed, sitting in a chair just out of view. I just know they were hers.

In leaving, I passed one of her backup singers, Sharon Celani, in the hotel lobby. I stopped her and told her I was a huge fan. She was humble and quite nice. I went on- I’d recently decided to prove my love for the band by getting a tattoo. It only made sense that because I also loved penguins, that I would use the penguin logo from the Rumours album- the one wearing a top hat with cane and crystal ball in his flippers. I showed it to Sharon, who seemed quite impressed.

After the show, I ran into her again while stalking the hotel in hopes of a glimpse of Stevie. I mentioned that I was driving to Dallas the next day to see the show there, as well, something I did more than once. She asked for my name and said she’d leave a backstage pass for me at will call.

Years later I’d run into Sharon in a hotel lobby in Phoenix, this time after a fundraising concert I attended. I reminded her of my tattoo and she remembered me. I was living in Maryland and making good money. Stevie was helping the Arizona Heart Institute and I bought a ticket for $1000. It included a fancy dinner with one of the institute’s top heart surgeons at his large desert home north of Phoenix, great show seats, and an after show party where Stevie would appear for a special presentation. We were led to believe that we’d have the chance to meet her, but we were quite disappointed when she graciously accepted her award and then promptly got back in the limo and departed.

In the 29 years that I’ve been a Stevie Nicks fan, I’ve probably seen her live twenty times, maybe more. I’ve lost track. I could search my records, for I’ve kept every concert ticket stub. There’ve been some really great Stevie moments in my life. I’ve shaken her hand twice during shows when she came to the front of the stage during her song, “Edge of Seventeen”. I had a conversation with her father at the Arizona Heart Institute show and met her mom there as well. The next day I went to the store owned by her mother, who sold Stevie mementos.

At the Behind the Mask tour in 1990, I got backstage, where I was able to meet the male members of Fleetwood Mac. Stevie and Christine McVie were “busy putting on makeup,” and I didn’t get to have them sign my program. Then, in Dallas, when I showed up back stage with the pass given to me by Sharon, I was recognized by co-workers from concert security and it was thought that I had obtained my backstage pass illegally. They tried to take it from me as they escorted me out. But that was my precious souvenir. I grabbed it, not allowing them to take it from me and demanded that they could kick me out, but by gods, they weren’t taking my pass!

In 2000, I got a job that required six weeks of training. The expensive Arizona fundraiser was taking place 2 days following the conclusion of the class I expected to be in. When I found out that they were putting me in a class one week later, I protested, giving up the details of my plans to fly to Phoenix to see Stevie. Fortune was on my side, for the woman on the other end of the line was also a fan, and she personally moved me back into the first class so that I wouldn’t miss her show.

I’ve seen her all over America; Houston, Dallas, Baltimore, DC, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. Seeing her concerts in the San Francisco area is always special, because she attended high school and started her singing career with Lindsey Buckingham here. I love to hear her talk between songs about growing up here and how special this place is. It’s always nice to see a musician in concert where they got their start.

I remember finding out where she was staying after a show in Houston. I had joined a local Stevie Nicks fan club and become close friends with a few other fans. Together, four of us rushed to the hotel after the show to wait for our goddess’ arrival. When the limo pulled up, she got out and looked at us. We must have been quite a sight to her- a sad-looking group of fans, the women looking quite a bit like her, in lace and chiffon. We stood there in silence, completely deer in the headlights. We didn’t think to call out to her. We didn’t think to move closer to her. We simply stood there, about 20 yards away and watched in silence. She paused for a second while taking us in, put out a cigarette and walked inside. Only then could my brain begin to work and I approached the limo driver, a man I knew from working other concerts. He handed to us some flowers she had taken from the concert and a few cold sodas that had been placed there for her. While we kicked ourselves for not meeting her, we felt on top of the world to have her flowers and soda!

Some of my most fond memories of life involve my Stevie. I remember listening to her tape on my Walkman when visiting my paternal grandparents. After the tape finished, I’d take off my headphones and I could hear my grandparents saying their nightly prayers before going to bed. While pondering the universe on a star-lit dock over the Caribbean in Nassau, it was her that I played. Any road trip I ever took included her serenades. I’d go camping and my friends from the fan club and I would sing her songs around the camp fire. And recently, while visiting the pyramids in Cairo, it was Stevie who I listened to on my MP3 player.

And one stressful night while in college, I was walking around the campus with its huge oak trees with moss hanging from its branches. It was slightly foggy and I had Rumours playing through the headphones. Gold Dust Woman came on and I heard it in a way I had never before; perhaps because of the eerie surroundings I was in. It started so soft and gentle, but had this forewarning quality to it. And as the song closed, I listened intently to the wailing and crying; the pain and confusion. It moved me. I rewound it, covered with goose bumps. I listened to it again and again. It was what I needed that night.

And that’s the magic for me and my Stevie. She always seems to be what I need. Whether it’s to be tied back to the more carefree days of my youth or to find some inspiration, her music, her voice, her mystery and lace, her strength and beauty- it gets me. Rare is the time that I’ll let anyone within hearing distance get away with disparaging my goddess. You may say she sounds like a goat or that singing into a fan makes you sound like her, but you’d be treading on thin ice with me!

Last night I saw her again. It seems like it was just a few years ago that I was in Dallas seeing her for the first time. I remembered how hearing her sing Beauty and the Beast made me cry. I remembered another time in Houston, that as she took to the stage to start the show how I began to cry. It was then that I finally understood the girls who cried when seeing the Beatles. I felt so silly and tried to hide it. She was larger than life and yet actually real.

And now, 29 years later, I’m still getting choked up when she steps out onstage. Her ballads still wet my eyes a bit more than I’d care to admit. But she looks so good; present and in control. She sounds just as magic as she always has, and completely more mature. That doesn’t bother me; now that she’s 62, I expect her to take on that matronly image that warrants as much from someone her age. And as she sings in her song, “Landslide”, “I’m getting older, too.” No longer do I trail her after shows (given my age and today’s fear of stalkers, that’s probably a good thing) or send cards to the event facility. She doesn’t twirl as much as she used to. But she’s there, on stage, as usual, all these years later, still with her wardrobe changes of chiffon and lace and singing her standards from both her solo career and her time with Fleetwood Mac. And I may be in a large auditorium full of other fans, but she’s my Stevie, and she always will be!

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Adventures in Flight: Penguin in the Left Seat

The sun had set and a dark purple curtain of darkness had fallen. There wasn’t enough light to be illuminating, yet it wasn’t quite dark enough to say it was night time. I could still see the features of landscape in the distance, but only as darkened objects against the lighter colored sky. I sat in the left seat of a 747 cockpit, the one normally reserved for the plane’s captain. I’m no captain. I’m not even a pilot. I would like to be, but I’m not. But there I was, sitting in the left seat; the engines turning and the lights at the forward landing gear lighting up the centerline of the runway.

In front of me was runway 28-right, the longest of the four runways at San Francisco’s International Airport. A real captain was in the right seat next to me and he hit a switch, turning on the plane’s landing lights, thus illuminating the runway from one side to the other. Past the runway I could see San Bruno Mountain with its antenna towers blinking on and off. I looked to my left and could see the headlights of the cars moving along highway 101 and was happy to not be sitting in the backup of traffic. To my right was the company’s large maintenance hangar and the San Francisco bay was beyond that.

Captain Henry was more than my co-pilot today. He was guiding me through the step by step process of our mission. He finished inputting data into the plane’s computer and we were ready to roll. But first he wanted me to experience taxiing this behemoth. At his instruction, I pushed the throttles forward just over an inch. I heard the engines rev up, felt the vibration and then the plane slowly started to move. With my left hand on the tiller, I began to control the direction the plane went. As we lurched forward, the wheels began to run across the centerline lights and I could feel the plane vibrate over them.

A747 photo by Penguin Scott

I felt like this was a dream. I’ve longed to ride in a 747 cockpit for a very long time. I remember taking a small Cessna from Maryland to New Jersey back in 1999; I was so excited. After we landed, I spoke to my pilot friend about how great it would be to fly in the cockpit of a commercial jetliner. He agreed, and I’ve since done that. But here I was, in the cockpit- the left seat at that- at the controls. It was no dream.

I was instructed to turn right, off of runway 28R, and return the plane to its takeoff position at the start of the long runway. Capt. Henry gave me a stern warning- I was turning too soon. “Don’t forget, the wheels are behind you. You have to pass the center line and then make the turn.” While saying this, he assisted me with the tiller on his side of the cockpit and corrected my mistake. It was a hard thing for me to learn as I did it again on my next turn, for which I was rewarded with another stern warning.

Steering a plane is nothing like steering a car. It doesn’t respond well to small corrections made often. Basically, what I needed to do was put the tiller in one position and let it go. Constant corrections only make the plane continually zig-zag down the taxiway. By the time I learned this, my taxi was complete.

Back at the start of runway 28R, we were now ready for take off. I was buckled in and ready for the task of letting this 747 loose, to tear down the runway and lift off into the night sky. Capt. Henry instructed me to push the throttles forward. There were four; one for each engine, and they all moved in sync. It took a second and then the power hit the engines and the plane lurched forward, gaining speed down the runway. I asked the captain when to rotate. He seemed impressed with my knowledge of this.

When I was in flight attendant initial training, nine years previous, I had the opportunity to sit in a cockpit for the duration of a flight, from push back to block-in. After taking off, I had the chance to ask questions. This is when I learned that the point at which the pilot pulls back on the stick to make the plane take off is the point at which one of the pilots say, “Rotate.” And now, in the 747 cockpit, not sure if he’d state that point of the takeoff roll or not, Capt. Henry said he’d tell me when to do so.

About half way down the runway, he told me to pull back. I did and the plane lifted up. Capt. Henry pushed a lever and the wheels retracted. I could hear them do so and could feel them take their place in the wheel well somewhere below me, just as I had felt so many times before from inside the airplane cabin. He pointed to an artificial horizon (or the attitude indicator) on a screen in front of me and showed me at what point to keep the nose on the screen to keep our current rate of climb. If the plane started to sink below this line, I pulled back a bit. If it started to get too high, I pushed down. Then I was instructed to make a left turn.

As I began to turn the stick, and as the plane began to bank to the left, I noticed that I was losing my rate of climb, so I pulled back on the stick. It was difficult and took a bit of strength. I was concentrating so hard on keeping the rate of climb, that I ignored the turn. I got another stern warning from the right seat, “Watch your turn or you’ll end up in the drink,” which was slang for water, or in this case, the Pacific Ocean.

We were now over the water just off the coast of Pacifica, which was my home. I looked up and out of the cockpit window and we were in a very steep bank. He grabbed the wheel in front of him and corrected it back to a normal left turn. It was a good thing the cockpit has two sets of throttles so he could make the flight corrections we needed.

His warnings reminded me a lot of my grandfather teaching me to drive. I spent my summers visiting my grandparents in the Texas Panhandle. Once I had my learner’s permit, he went with me on a short drive. He had a tendency to sound a bit more stern than I’m sure he meant to, but he made his point and was concerned about me wrapping his nice car around a pole, or worse, another car. And like my grandfather, Capt. Henry was concerned about our safety, not to mention that of our flight.

The turn was completed and we were now flying steady at about eight thousand feet just off the coast of California. I could see the car lights on Hwy. 1. Capt. Henry instructed the woman in the jump seat directly behind me to hit a switch and suddenly the windows went blank; nothing to see but a gray screen. Another switch was hit and the windows came back to life. Suddenly, the view changed to about five miles south of the airport. We were now over the bay, frozen in time, suspended as if in a video game.

But this was no ordinary video game. This was a multi million dollar simulator, used by the best pilots of the company for training purposes. My captain in the right seat was a flight instructor. And I had just taxied and taken off a 747 airplane. Not a real one, of course. But you can’t get any closer to the real thing than one of these simulators. From the traffic on highway 101 and the blinking lights of the towers on San Bruno Mountain, to the wheels crossing the lights on the runway and the feel of the wheels retracting after takeoff, everything was as real as the real thing itself.

From the outside, I was in a contraption supported by numerous jacks that control a motion platform. On the inside, I was in a 747 cockpit just like any other in our fleet. Inputs made from inside controlled the motion platform, which was calibrated in such a manner that even the slightest motion, like the wheel going over the center line, made a movement noticeable in the cockpit.

A flight simulator

We were now ready to land, and with the hit of another switch we were again moving. The lights of the city below were angled as the nose of the plane was pointed at the beginning of the runway we were about to land on. As we crossed the San Mateo Bridge, he lowered the landing gear. As they locked into place, they added drag on the plane’s flight, and we could feel that in the cockpit as slight vibrations. Looking at the attitude indicator, I kept the box on the artificial horizon where it was supposed to be for our landing. I thought Capt. Henry did most of the flying on the approach, but he swears it was all me. I know this plane can land itself, and it really did seem to fly quite easily.

The plane came to a stop. I had landed. The switches were hit and the screens went blank again. When they came back on, we were at the start of runway 28R once more. I got out of the left seat and Sandy, the flight attendant seated behind me climbed in. Now it was her turn to fly and mine to observe.

I was at our main training facility for my annual recurrent emergency training (RET) to refresh my skills of being a flight attendant. Once a year, we are required to practice opening and closing airplane doors, drill emergency procedures, recertify our AED and CPR skills, and get hands on experience using emergency equipment, such as fire extinguishers. I normally do this at my home base in the Bay Area, where I also live. But for some reason, this year I was sent to the facility where the pilots also train. And after a few of us in class expressed interest in a tour of one of the huge simulators, our instructor was able to arrange for Capt. Henry to meet us early the next day. I had no idea he’d actually let us “fly”, but it was the thrill of a lifetime!

After we completed our takeoff and landing, we went to class, a bit later than planned. I was so excited that I was actually still shaky from the experience. The instructor had informed the class as to why we were late and he asked me how I liked it. I told him that I felt much the same way after my first time sky diving. It was a thrill, exhilarating, and a dream come true. I was on a high like none other! Every nerve tingled. Every sense was alive. I had just taxied, taken off and landed a 747. Not a real one, but the realest I’ll ever get. It was an amazing experience that I’ll not soon forget!

A 747 landing at LAX

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Things Learned from my Father

Two ships in the Caribbean

For many years I’ve been giving credit to Mother for my better qualities. My parents split when I was a toddler, so I have no memories of the two of them being together. I no longer know my father, and even though my issues with him are mountainous, I do have to credit him for teaching me some valuable lessons in life.

My parents divorced when I was about two and my father moved away. He moved to Dallas when I was 13 and I moved in with him just before entering 8th grade. It must have been a huge inconvenience for Gary, who was a card-carrying bachelor and one of god’s gifts to society, although no one else seemed to get that memo.

One day, in my sophomore year in high school, he comes to tell me that for Thanksgiving, he and I would be going on a vacation to the Bahamas. I was really excited about this. We flew in first class and stayed in a nice hotel with rich surroundings and a pink exterior. Our room looked out towards the ocean. I could see the pool and there, beyond, a little pier with a gazebo, jutting over the water.

It was here that I had my first experience with cruise ships. My step-father worked in the shipping industry, so he had taken me on tours of large ships in the Houston Ship Channel. But these huge, white palaces full of revelers and lights…for a young teen, they were whole worlds yet to be explored.

Using binoculars, I watched with great interest as huge cruise ships would start out as a white speck on the horizon and slowly grow in size as they would near port. I soon noticed the tug boats leaving the dock to help bring them into port. Gary saw my interest in them, and one day asked if I wanted to go see one up close. I sure did! And as we approached the ship, he said, “Let’s go on board and look around.” But could we? With no time to debate, all I could do was follow.

One thing I learned from my father was that if there is something you want to do, do so with authority and like you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. There may be questions of whether or not it is ethical, but if executed just right, one could get away with anything.

The next thing I know, he was talking with the people at the gang way, and we were soon going up the steps inside the ship. It was just that easy. We walked into the casino, now quite deserted, since gambling only took place in the open waters. We went high, onto the upper decks, and enjoyed the view out to sea. Then we crossed over to the port side and looked out onto the island, a view from such heights we had not enjoyed up to now.

I looked down to the ground and to the dock and saw ropes being undone and the gang way we’d come in on beginning to move on board. I punched my father for his attention to this detail and at the same moment, without either of us saying a word, we bolted towards the stairs and down them, post haste. I’ve never seen my father move so quickly in my life!

When we got to the door, after only being on board for 10 minutes, he had to explain that we were not passengers; they were very reluctant to let us off. He told them someone outside had let us come on, but earlier, I think he more or less made them think we belonged on board. The man in uniform muttered something about being lucky that we weren’t arrested as stowaways. The gang way was returned to the dock and I followed Gary off the large ship, having to walk quickly to follow him, as his tail went between his legs.

He slowed down only after turning the corner, back on the street towards our hotel. We both had a laugh while catching our breath; glad to be back where we belonged. I asked him what would have happened had we become stuck on board. He supposed that we would just have fun as stowaways until the next port, where we’d have gotten off and found a flight back to Nassau! He said this like it was no big deal and I almost wished that had been reality. What an adventure to tell back home!

It was a huge lesson for me, watching him work his magic and seeing it blow up in his face. And the lesson learned wasn’t so much how to make things work in my favor as it was that each action has a consequence. I know what he did was wrong; he didn’t have to lecture on that. But I knew there was a power there, and if I were willing to use it, I had to be willing to accept the ramifications of doing so.

The following day was spent at the pool. It was the early ’80s, so, as was the fashion with teens, I had my portable tape player, headphones and a collection of tapes of my favorite music. Gary spent a few hours with me and then disappeared; probably off to a bar to hit on women as usual (if they only knew).

I looked out towards the horizon where I could see a white speck. Reaching for the binoculars, I could see that it was another large cruise ship heading right for us. I looked over to where the docks were and could see a tug boat and its captain readying it for launch. I grabbed my things, dashed to the room and then to the dock. When I got to the tug, I looked up to the captain, a large, surly man with a beard and a hat and wearing yellow cover-alls, and asked if he was going to bring that ship in. And then I asked if I could come along. He welcomed me aboard, showed me upstairs and said that I had to stay there, out of the way. “I won’t move,” I assured him.

After reaching the balcony and looking down, I saw the last mooring line being pulled in and then we were off, just like that. Had I been a minute later, I would not be on board. And it suddenly dawned on me what I had just done. I didn’t tell my father where I had gone. I asked a stranger if I could ride on his boat out to sea, while he was busy working to bring in a huge vessel. A smile graced my face as the wind blew my hair and I felt so alive. There was nothing I couldn’t do. And I knew my father would be proud of me.

We reached the huge boat not too far out, took in some lines and pulled it back to Nassau. People lined the rails of the ship and waved down to me. The tug seemed so small next to that large boat and I felt as big as the ship in my success. I waved back like I was in charge of the whole operation.

The tug docked and the man who let me on motioned for me to come down, which I did. I thanked the crew and jumped on land and ran back to the hotel, where I found Gary. While not too concerned, he asked quite simply where I had been. Indeed, he was impressed.

My father was also successful at the bar, where he’d met a lady. He informed me that she was staying at a resort on the nearby island, and had offered for the two of us to join her for dinner.

The island was a short taxi ride. We reached a guard house and the man within seemed hesitant to let our cab go through. I paid little attention to what he said, but I recall feeling a little uncomfortable with the story Gary was making up. But the story did its job and the gate arm lifted to allow us to proceed. He looked over to me with this look on his face. It was like he’d just gotten past the palace guards. All that was left was to conquer the king. Or in this case- queen.

We left the cab at the main entrance to a luxurious all-inclusive resort. There were lush trees and bushes, sandy areas with bars and the beach could be heard nearby. Tables were being set with linens and nice, white china and all around were sexy, young couples, in varying degrees of intoxication. I’ve never seen such a collection of string bikinis, and so much cleavage!

Caribbean Sunset

Gary found his date, who greeted me with enthusiasm. They spoke briefly and then we walked to the dinner table. We dinned on steak and shrimp that night under a canopy of stars and palm trees. I had a virgin daiquiri, but Gary let me sip on some of his as well. It wasn’t so virgin. As dinner concluded, a man took the stage. Before I knew it, there was a call for volunteers from the audience to come and do a dance number. Gary prodded me into going up. I didn’t want to, but finally gave in, not realizing at the time that it was a way for him to be alone with his lady friend. So there I am on stage, dancing like I was born to do so. One song blended into the next. Each time a song ended, a few people left the stage. But I remained, loving the attention of being in the spotlight. I’d look down to our table to see Gary and this girl. He’d look at me with a proud smile and give me the thumbs up and a wink. He had a look on his face like he wished I could stay on that stage all night.

Soon, my part in the show was over. There was a statue given out, but sadly, not to me, which sent me back to my table empty-handed and sweaty. “Let’s go for a walk,” Gary exclaimed. My father had also taught me good manners, and was big on chivalry. I folded my napkin and placed it along side my plate, as I had learned to do, pushed my seat in, and dutifully followed my father and this poor woman to the sandy beach. Before long, I lost them in the night air as I ventured off on my own to explore. It was a very nice resort, more secluded than our pink palace in town with its private beach and views of the harbor.

He later took me back to the hotel and then left again, saying he was going out for the night (meaning back to the resort to screw around with that lady). I walked out onto the pier, as seen from my room. It was a windy night and I loved to feel the breeze on my face. I put in a Stevie Nicks tape and reflected on our holiday weekend in the Caribbean. I thought about all that we had gotten away with. And thinking back on our flight from Dallas, he hadn’t bought first class tickets. He had talked his way into those seats and then got a bag full of minis to boot! He talked his way onto the cruise ship, into the resort for dinner and had me feeling no fear in going out to sea on my own. Gary had taught me a lot on that trip, that you can get away with just about anything! He really was a smooth talker. I’d need a lot of practice to be as suave as him.

While in college, I got a job working concert security. I was good at what I did and saw in others a lot of my father. There were those who would try to get backstage with stories of how they were related to the producer, or friends of some big so and so. It didn’t work, but I was greatly entertained. I knew their game because I’d learned from a pro.

I have used what he taught me from time to time. I went back stage at concerts more than once without proper credentials. I’ve eaten at places reserved for those I was not a part of. I even learned how to access my favorite theme park without paying. No one ever said a thing. I looked the part, just as I learned in Nassau. The odd thing about having been successful in these adventures is that I’m a horrible liar.

These days, I don’t find myself in such situations like I used to. And I suppose that I’ve gotten most of that kind of thing out of my system. As much as my father has disappointed me in my life, I am thankful for some of the more profound experiences in using that power, and rarely with negative ramifications. Only twice was I discovered backstage, and each time I was simply escorted out. Now if only I could figure out a way to fly on Air Force One!

Airforce one at SFO

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Penguin on the High Seas

* A link to my cruise photos follows.

I’ve been going around for a while saying it’s been about 3 years since my last cruise. It was my first time to cruise. I had found a nice 5 day trip from San Juan, so I went out a few days early to stay with a friend of mine who owns a bed and breakfast a short drive from there. I loved it so much; it has made me a true fan of setting sail on a large boat over the oceans of our planet. Imagine my surprise at learning that it was 4 years, almost to the date, and not three, since that Eastern Caribbean cruise. It’s no wonder I’ve been drooling over cruise ships and talking to my friends about going for over a year now.

So I finally put my foot down and decided that I was going to go again, even if I had to do so on my own. I went on my first cruise by myself, but on the first night I ran into a co-worker and her friend, and I had company the whole week. My biggest hurdle in cruising is finding someone to go with; either friends have the time and no money, or the money and no time.

I had the time off. I had a special cruise savings account with plenty of money to cover the low deals I was getting for working in the travel industry, and to cover the other fees needed to cruise; tips, taxes transportation and souvenirs. And almost at the last minute, I found a friend to go with me. Finally, after four long years, I would be sailing again.

So at two weeks out I booked an 8-day, 7-night cruise from Miami on Carnival. I spent the next two weeks going out of my mind in anticipation. I spent hours each day researching the ship and reviews from past travelers. I looked through people’s photo albums and viewed videos from Youtube. I found sample menus, looked at excursions and discussed various topics on several forums. When I actually walked on the ship in person, I felt like I’d been there before!

With my bags packed my journey started the day before our ship set sail. It would do so at 4pm on the last Saturday in February and I wanted to make sure I would be on it and not stuck in some airport with winter delays. I had found a nice hotel near the airport that offered free transportation when I arrived, and that also had a free shuttle to the port the next day. Several hotels offered such a shuttle, but the main reason I chose this particular hotel was because their port shuttle left before the others, and I was in such a hurry to get on board…

My friend, Loren, had travel credits on another airline so he flew in a few hours after I did. And since that airline didn’t fly into Miami, he had to fly into Ft. Lauderdale and take a van. We were so excited when he did arrive. It was like the vacation was finally a reality; our trip was finally going to begin!

We got little sleep that night from all of our anticipation. But we were up early for our complimentary breakfast and to be in line for the shuttle. The mood for the cruise was set on the van to the port from our hotel. There were several ships docked so the van had a few stops to make. The first ship had only 2 people getting off, a couple in their 60s. The husband started towards the door of the van but had left a bag behind so his wife began calling his name. Not hearing her, he continued towards the front when she finally shouted, “Hey, dumb-ass!” Not only did it get his attention, but every married man in the van turned his head!

We arrived at the port by 1130 and boarded the Carnival Liberty around 1230. It seems fast, to think we got through security and check-in in just an hour. But it seemed like it was taking forever! Unable to get into our rooms for another hour, we headed upstairs to the fish and chips restaurant and got lunch.

There were so many options for lunch on our ship. There was a burrito bar, a deli, a pizzeria that was open 24 hours, the fish and chips counter, the huge buffet, a grill for burgers, dogs, chicken strips and nachos and even free room service. It was like a challenge to see if one could experience all aspects of culinary delights that they offered on board! I did try them all but one. I never did eat lunch in the main buffet line. The burritos were great, and even included shrimp as a choice. Their fried oysters were so good that I had them at least 3 times that week. The pizza was OK, not as good as on my last voyage, but that was an Italian cruise line, so the bar was set very high. The burgers were decent and I loved the deli sandwiches.

I think what I love most about being on a cruise is the treatment I receive. It’s as if being treated like royalty. My stateroom is made up while I’m at breakfast and again at dinner, when they turn my bed down. On Carnival, we are welcomed in the evenings by elaborate towel sculptures on our bed, and chocolates. You are always entertained and constantly fed. Drinks are a little expensive, but I did very little of that on my trip; doctor’s orders.

The best part is dinner. I enjoy dressing up a bit in nice slacks and shirts and having a formal meal with linens and 4 courses and attentive service. The meals on board were very good. Some nights I found myself commenting that I’ve had better, but it certainly wasn’t bad. On lobster night, I ate 2. Most nights I couldn’t decide on the appetizer, so I had 2, or even 3. It’s also fun to try food I wouldn’t normally try, since it wasn’t costing me anything. And if I didn’t like it, I could just order something else! The one thing I found most disappointing with our meals were the desserts, which mostly were bland. Only a few I found decent enough to finish, but I was fine with that- after the huge meals, who needed a big dessert? Plus, the soft ice cream machine flowed 24 hours.

We ate each night with 2 lovely women, Melinda and Pam. They were sisters and were so very nice. Loren and I both enjoyed getting to know them. We were at a table for 8, but most nights it was just the 4 of us. On our second night, we finally met Rick and Tom, two buddies cruising together. Rick was a character, who kept talking of his wife, yet he wore no ring and seemed to flirt endlessly. Tom was single, but very quiet. Both were fishermen who looked forward to some deep sea fishing on our first stop in Cozumel.

I was a little disappointed in the rain that began to fall just as the ship brought in her lines to set sail from Miami. People scurried below decks, but Loren and I stuck it out, eventually finding a covered area on deck 10. The rain didn’t last long and we enjoyed the views leaving Miami for almost an hour before exploring the rest of the ship. That first night we sailed fast, going through a low pressure area with high winds and seas. All night the boat swayed up and down and from our room over the bow we often heard the ship slamming into waves with a hull-shaking thud and rattle of anything loose in the cabin. It was like slow motion turbulence on a plane, which I love. A few times it woke us up, once causing me to comment that it was like an earth quake! And when asked the next morning, about a third of those in the theater said they were experiencing some sea sickness. Fortunately, it never bothered me.

On day 2 at sea, we arrived in Cozumel as the sun was rising. I awoke in time to venture onto our balcony for photos. I had booked an interior stateroom, as I normally spend very little time in my room, so I have no need to spend the extra money on a view. However, we got an upgrade into a room with a picture window. It was over the bow, 2 levels below the bridge. It looked onto a large balcony, which very few people seemed to know about. It was almost like having our own private balcony! I spent a lot of time there, especially when we arrived at our various ports.

It was in Cozumel that Loren and I had our only official excursion. We had booked a tour to see the Mayan ruins of Tulum. We had to disembark at 0800, so we had secured a prearranged room service for breakfast and got some sandwiches as well to take as a snack on the tour. To get to Tulum, we rode a 45-minute ferry to the mainland, where we boarded a bus for our hour-long ride.

I was amazed at the beautiful clouds that morning when we arrived. Our tour guide was amazing. He was of Mayan ancestry, so was able to give us a very interesting account of their history, making sure to convey his belief that the Mayans disappeared because there were more people than what the land could support, so they abandoned their great cities and greedy rulers, leaving most everything behind.

The ruins were amazing and Manuel, our tour guide, explained their correlation to the sun and stars and the seasons. He showed us places on the ground where one can easily find pieces of pottery left over, but saying that it was bad luck to take any. There were numerous birds and iguanas and the sea breeze and ocean sounds were quite pleasant. I was glad to be visiting at a time when it’s not too hot, as I hear that Tulum can get quite warm.

After the tour we had some time on our own to look around, and then Loren’s agenda was to get a good Mexican taco. Manuel recommended a place so we returned to the bus area to give it a try. We both had a combination plate with a fish taco, a beef taco and a chicken quesadilla. All were very good and the margaritas were so strong that by the time I finished my 2nd one, I was a bit loopy. I slept almost the entire way back to Playa del Carmen for our return ferry.

We still had a lot of time and did some brief shopping before running into Tom and Rick, who were at a bar getting hammered. Tom showed off photos of the large mahi mahi that he had caught on their fishing trip and then we made our way back to the ship.

Loren and I were very much looking forward to snorkeling in Grand Cayman, our second stop. I had found a place within walking distance of our pier where there was a ship wreck over which we could snorkel. However, an early morning announcement informed us that due to strong winds and high seas in Georgetown, we were positioned in a different area of the island. Many tours were cancelled and we would not be able to snorkel over the Cali, due to the big waves. However, the area the ship was positioned was fairly calm. We took the tender to the island and asked about a place to snorkel. The lady told us of a public beach about a five minute walk. We set out for said beach and found it to be quaint, beautiful and a perfect location for snorkeling.

It wasn’t the prettiest snorkeling I’ve done, and the waves were a little intense at times. But I accomplished what I had set out to do. That was to see turtles, sting rays and lobster. Not only did I see these, but I saw a cuddle fish and a neat-looking flounder. It’s for times like these that I’m happy I have a waterproof camera and I even took some underwater video.

After getting out of the Caribbean waters, I found a nice shady spot to lounge in and met a family from San Diego. I took more photos of our ship, which was unable to actually anchor, due to the depth of the ocean, so it, and a few other ships, kept their positions by using their thrusters.

The following day we arrived in Ocho Rios, Jamaica as the sun was rising. It looked so colorful and inviting. But I found Ocho Rios to be a pain in the ass. Every three steps and we were accosted by someone new asking if we wanted a tour, if we wanted a taxi, if we wanted food or music, if we wanted ganja and I even was offered an 8-ball, which I think has something to do with cocaine.

I was more than happy to get back to the ship after our short little walk through town, where Loren picked up some Jamaican jerk for lunch. I was satisfied with the jerk I had at dinner the night before, so I ate on board, grabbing a tray of food and eating on a lounge chair on deck 10, which is where I spent most of my deck time on board, as it was shady there and I could keep out of the sun.

It was so nice to lounge on deck on our at-sea days. I’d take some reading, but it was often difficult to do much as I’m easily distracted by the people to watch. There were a lot of young people and people my age on board our cruise. There were also a lot of Canadians, escaping the winter. I loved meeting all the interesting people and hearing about their cruise experiences. I was also happy that Loren and I were content to be spending most of our days doing our own thing. It was the perfect balance of having a friend to go on excursions with and to enjoy the shows with, but being able to move freely and keep my own agenda on board. He loved playing bingo and I enjoyed the art auction and games, or going to high tea.

Each night we attended the shows in the large ornate theater. Most nights the shows were really good and offered song and dance numbers. One night we were entertained by a couple of guys who did comedy and juggling. The next morning at breakfast I actually heard someone use the term, “tomfoolery” in his review of that show! It was hilarious. On 2 nights there was a hypnotist. I’ve always been skeptical of these shows, not trusting that people are actually under. But I met a kid in the hot tub who said he really was looking for his belly button and couldn’t explain why he wanted to belly dance – and try to take his clothes off while doing so. Maybe it was for real, after all. But then, the next night I met one of the guys who said he wasn’t under and that he was just going along with it for the glory of being on stage.

Our cruise director was so energetic. His name was Butch and he appeared to be only in his thirties. He talked fast but often was quite humorous and ended most paragraphs by saying, “Ay?”. He even had us repeating ‘Ay’ every time he said it. He was from Minnesota, as were a lot of the American guests.

My biggest disappointment with this ship was the smoking policy on board. I had been looking forward to spending time in the disco at nights and in the piano bar and doing some karaoke. But in each of these bars, and a few others, they allowed smoking! I went to the desk to inquire; do they allow smoking every night, or are there some non-smoking nights? Nope, every night. And where were the non-smoking bars? One was in the main lobby, which is where all the octogenarians hung out with the lounge music. One was a bar that closed down at 11pm each night. And the other was the bar next to the casino, where the smoke was so intense you could hardly see the far wall! Not only that, but Carnival allows smoking in the state rooms (any interior cabin and any cabin with a balcony…and you can smoke inside the room, not just on the balcony!). This meant that in walking down the corridors, it was like walking through an ash tray. The ship often seemed like one, big, floating ash tray!

It was for this reason alone that I have told numerous people that I could never sail on Carnival again, not until they change their smoking policy. When I sailed on the Italian line (MSC) I was never bothered by smoke on board! It’s sad, too, as the ship was beautiful, the staff were friendly, the other passengers were fun and energetic and other than not being able to enjoy the night life on board, I had a really good time.

The week was over far too fast for me. I could have spent another week on board and now I am thinking one day, I’ll need to take a 2-week cruise! Loren was ready to get home, though, saying he was tired of eating! Yes, we lived like kings and ate like there was no tomorrow. Now I’m home, a bit depressed, and on a strict diet to lose the pounds I put on last week! But it was so worth it. And with more vacation coming to me in November, I am already putting out the word that I’m seeking cruise partners. Maybe the Mexican Riviera!

Here is a link to all my cruise photos:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=823345368211%3A274494334&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee

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Mrs. Sanders

Photo: Albany bulb artwork by Penguin Scott

The year was 1981 and I was in seventh grade. Paul Revere Middle School had just opened for seventh and eighth graders. In fact, during the first few weeks of classes, there were still a few minor construction projects still under way.

Yet, for being a brand new school, it had a rough quality to it. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that at my previous school, the elementary, my class of several hundred sixth-graders were at the top of the food chain and had no negative influences reigning down on them, whereas the eighth-graders had come from a middle school in a rougher part of Houston, where they had different values of behavior. Being in a new building was nice, but I didn’t like the energy of the other students.

I was assigned a class to learn Spanish. The room was located on the second floor of the new school, near the front of the building. The newly-scrawled graffiti was a bit more prevalent in this part of the school, which I thought was odd since it was closer to the principal’s office. I largely ignored the graffiti, in part because I didn’t understand what much of it meant.

The thought of learning Spanish intrigued me, so I was at first eager to take part in the curriculum. Walking into the room, I found a seat near the center of the room and laid eyes on Mrs. Sanders. I knew it was Mrs. Sanders because her name was written on the green chalkboard at the front of the room. The lettering was exquisite. I don’t know that I’d ever seen a teacher with such nice chalkboard script.

To my young eyes, Mrs. Sanders seemed to be a hundred years old. Round spectacles hung on her tiny nose, which was framed by wrinkled cheeks and a forehead full of horizontal lines etched deep in her skin. She had to be older than my grandparents and I wondered if she’d still be alive by the end of the semester.

Her hair stood high and rounded from being teased, and apparently had been dyed, as she had roots of a slightly lighter color with some grey evident throughout. Skinny legs seemed to dangle from beneath her blue polyester skirt and on her feet were wimple and sturdy low-heeled sandals, like any typical person of her age might wear, with a large gold buckle and squared fronts. Her bony arms formed points at either side of her body, with its bulging tummy, as she listened to a student with her hands rested on her hips.

As she listened to the girl speaking to her, her brown eyes would squint, seemingly to better concentrate on what was being said. This created more wrinkles on her face, which seemed very unnecessary to me!

When she spoke, she did so with an old, gravelly voice. She had no accent, which I think I expected from someone about to teach me Spanish. But she spoke with a careful consideration of what she was saying, deliberate in her pronunciation and sure to be understood so as not to need to repeat herself. And I would come to find that she had a habit of looking downward towards the end of her sentences, as if she was looking down on the person being spoken to.

The room quickly filled and the new-styled electronic horn sounded , announcing the start of class. It would take some time getting used to hearing this horrid dual-toned beep after hearing bells for so many years.

I said a quick hello to Tim and Bill, friends of mine who sat in nearby seats. Our rectangle desks with their storage shelf just under the simulated wood grained tops were arranged in five rows of six desks in each row. I put the books from my other classes in the wire shelf and readied my notebook for class.

Mrs. Sanders started class by saying something in Espanol, and then followed with the English translation. Nothing like feeling lost in a class from the fist words out of the instructor’s mouth. It’s a feeling that would not be replicated again until I would reach college, when I enrolled in algebra! Carrie, who sat just behind me seemed to understand, though. She showed off by giving a little laugh after the teacher’s opening statement and before the translation.

Her first order of business was to rearrange the class in our seats according to a diagram she had already made. This was so she could better remember our names, as she could easily look to it and match the child with the corresponding box, which represented the seat the child sat in. But it was because she was too old to remember us any other way. My name came towards the end of the list, so I lost my nice seat near the center of the room and was now in the row furthest from the door and near the back of the room.

Mrs. Sanders’ next duty was to assign us all the Spanish equivalent of our Americanized names. I started to get excited at this prospect. I wondered what my name in Spanish would be. I liked my name, but it didn’t seem to have much flair. I did like that it was not a too common name. But after hearing it for so many years, I liked the idea of hearing something new for a while.

My friend Tim, while within the four walls of this room for the rest of the semester, would be known as Timmy-TAY-oh. Neat. Linda was now Leenda. Here, Mrs. Sanders took a moment to comment that her name meant “beautiful”. I like that, since that is also the name of my mother. John was assigned to be Juan. George became Hor-hay, there was Carmen, Rosa, Tow-mahs and I loved how Bill became Guiermo.

This was so exciting. What wonderful names. We were to use these names at all times during this class. My turn was coming up, she’d gone through almost the entire class. I sat up a little higher in my seat and presented a good, clean image to the ancient one. She got to me, first looking down at her list for my name. She looked up, hardly giving thought of my new name much consideration . Her lips parted and air from within her old, wrinkled lungs pushed through her vocal chords and they produced my very own name, as I’ve heard millions of times before, but only now with a slight accent over the O, coming out rhyming like something between hot and scoot. I could hear Leenda snicker.

And just like that she moved on to the next student and for an hour each day I would simply be called, Skoht. I slumped back down a bit, the smile from my face faded, my anticipation dashed. I hated Mrs. Sanders. And Leenda, too!

The class would be fun at times; trying at others. During the year we had a few celebrations, even going outside to finally burst the piñata that had been hanging in the class all semester. We had a field trip to a flamenco guitar concert and visited a Mexican bakery. Mrs. Sanders taught us to conjugate verbs, how the language had masculine and feminine words, and I became very good at the pronunciation of the words of the language.

But I never really came to like Mrs. Sanders. I don’t think it was the way in which she carelessly threw out my name with an accent on our first day, nor was it the fact that she was a small, scrawny ancient woman. She was an abrupt woman. She was very strict when it came to her familiarity with her routine. We were often required to state classroom answers “en Espanol”. I was a slow learner and not very motivated. She was constantly calling me out on my lack to answer in Spanish to the ability that she thought I should have.

However, after all these years, twenty-eight, to be exact, I now see that Mrs. Sanders was actually a wonderful teacher and a nice woman. I still think about her when, for fun, I will read a paragraph in Spanish with the proper pronunciation. I don’t know what the words mean, but I know how to say them.

I now appreciate her routines. I see that she was not yelling at me or talking down to me, but that she was pushing me to become a better student. But I was too busy learning the bad habits of the adolescents who shared the halls of Paul Revere; who had a rougher upbringing than that of mine.

Surely she’s expired by now, or in a state that she’d certainly never remember me. But I’ll never forget that class, that meticulous old woman, and the way she would call my name…Skhot.

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View to a Thrill: Ghosts in Japan

Photo by Penguin Scott

NRT March 13, 2004

I’m in Narita, Japan and turned on the radio. I found a station playing band music. The music is sort of jazzy- sort of big band; trumpets, pianos, violins, harps and bass, old people music, as I call it. I’d already been downtown, walked to the Naritasan temple, dined at the local noodle house and shopped in the hundred Yen store. Now I was back in my room, trying to find some activity to occupy myself with before boredom took control. I’m not sure why I chose to investigate the radio and its limited variety of stations, but there you have it; big band music to boot.

It took me back to the days when I was a young boy and I’d go to Corpus to visit my grandparents, Memaw and Pa. They listened to this type of music at night as they slept. I recall it so well; After staying up past my bedtime, I’d go to bed in the bedroom, which adjoined theirs. Still being awake when they would eventually turn out the lights, I could hear them pray together, the one that talks about walking down the valley of the shadow of death. From my bed, listening to them recite together, and then turn on the radio, I could feel the love they shared for one another. And I always wondered what that valley looked like, obviously all dark with those death shadows blocking out the sun.

Oh how I used to love going to Corpus. I would go to the grocery store with Pappy, holding his hand while crossing the street to go to that funny grocery store with a big arched roof. On the walls were large, colorful 3-D fruit and veggies. I seem to recall a mural you’d expect to see in West Texas with cowboys and covered wagons. Not sure how it wound up being on the Gulf Coast instead, but it left one of those wonderful, lasting impressions on a young boy.

My grandparents were such good cooks, and everything was made from scratch and with fresh ingredients, many grown in their very back yard. I’d eat things in Corpus I never ate at home in Houston; collard greens, fried okra, rice swimming in sweet milk. And it was here where I learned that some people put salt on their watermelon and didn’t use sugar in grits. I’ll never have hotcakes or cornbread the way my grandfather used to make them, and the world my never recover from this.

I loved their house, with its musty smell, the sound of the window air conditioner and the dim light created from keeping the curtains drawn to keep out the Texas heat. I recall the traffic noise from the busy street out front, the cicadas screeching in the hot and humid afternoons. They always made the heat seem so much more than maybe it was, as their screams permeated the living room where we hid in the relative cool. Memaw and Pa…together again, now that she passed away nearly six months ago.

And here I am in Japan listening to their music and thinking of them; missing them and reliving the past. I was so young then. And I feel so young now – not like I’m 36 at all; hardly even like late 20s. Sometimes I still feel so very young. And although I’ve been on my own for so long, and I’ve been an adult for as long as I was a child, I don’t feel all that old. That’s a good thing, I guess.

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An Acquired Taste by Penguin Scott

Photo by Penguin Scott

There goes an old man shuffling down the street. You’ve seen them a hundred times. If you live in certain parts of the country, maybe more. I’ve often wondered about that old man shuffle. How long have you had it? How did it come about? Did it start slowly or was there some traumatic event involved. One day you walk with majesty, the next- after some terrible accident, or finding out your hero is gay- the shuffle.

I recently had a bad bout and was taken to the hospital where I was told I had some unknown viral infection. With a fever of 107, sore, red spots all over my body, fatigue and achyness, I’ve been starting to feel my age, whereas, before getting sick, I felt about 7 years younger than I really am. But the latest thing is, I can drive for as short a distance as 10 miles, and when I get out of my car, I shuffle into my house; just like an old man.

So recently, I asked a friend of mine if this was going to be the start of how I look old to others. Will I have this shuffle from now on? Will I no longer be able to run up a flight of stairs? Will I now be taking the phone of the hook between 2-3 for my daily and quite necessary nap? Oh, wait, that last one, I’ve been doing it for years now.

When I was in high school, I remember a neighbor of mine in the condominium complex in which I lived. I didn’t really know the guy well. I would run into him as I picked up bags of trash . I had a job with the complex office and twice a week they would let me drive around in their electric golf cart and collect the trash people put out by their back door. By the time I would get around to servicing the buildings in my part of the complex, it was usually getting to be dinner time, and I would see Mr. Napier leaving for his car. He was a classic looking man, meaning he always wore slacks and a button down shirt with a tie and a hat and all very well coordinated. I knew so little of him but that he lived alone. One day I came to find out from him that his daily excursions were to go to various local restaurants for dinner. I got the impression that this man has never dirtied a pan in his life. Why, his countertops must be free from any scratch marks, burn marks or stains.

There have been times when I’ve been in eateries and I’ll see a man eating by himself and wonder if he was not similar to Mr. Napier, heading out each night for sustenance. What a life, I think, to always have the luxury of eating out, to always be waited on and to be able to afford it. It’s never like Mr. Napier was always going for the dollar menu, to be sure. He was going to nice sit down places, please wait to be seated, why, Mr. Napier, so good to see you again, would you like your regular table?

With my recent illness, I’ve not been much in the mood to do any cooking. Not to mention that where I currently live, decent cooking is made difficult by the fact that I only have a kitchenette; a small fridge, a sink, a few cabinets, a microwave and a toaster oven. These are hardly the tools with which to make a roast chicken or a succulent casserole. I eat a lot of frozen meals, stuffed in my small freezer. I also make a lot of sandwiches or little concoctions in my nifty omelet maker that I found in the aisle of the store that shelves the, “as seen on TV” items. It’s not usually too bad, what with my travels all over the world. I eat a few meals on the plane, or I eat out; in the airport, in the hotel restaurant, in the downtown mall food court. I don’t see that as luxurious, as it’s the only thing I can do, really.

But being home and unable to work for the last six weeks, I’m eating out more at home than normal. And what with my feeling my age, or older, and my newly acquired, and hopefully temporary old man shuffle, I’ve been feeling more like Mr. Napier than ever. Is this what I have to look forward to? Forever the bachelor who can’t cook for himself, for whatever reason, and eats out for his dinners. Why, Mr. Scott, so good of you to join us this evening. Would you like a menu or will you have the special, as usual?

A few nights ago I was trying out a local restaurant for the first time. It was fairly crowded, which was a good sign. It always seemed empty to me, so I never entered, thinking, well, if no else will eat there, I surely won’t. But I’d heard good things about it so I found myself there with a table for one and with quite a few others but all in groups of 2’s or 4’s. As I sat there, I had nothing to do but watch the other people. A young couple came in and occupied a booth to my right. They were in their mid thirties and once they took their seat, they both took out their portable communication devices and starting thumbing at them like they were covered in ants. They remained silent, a mirrored image of one another; head down at the same angle, same postures, holding their devices identically. Their only interruption was to give their dinner order, and then they returned to the silence and to the invisible ants.

They must have known one another for a long time to be so comfortable with that silence, I thought. I felt badly for our society when this is acceptable behavior for two people in a restaurant. Was there nothing they had to say to one another? What was so important out in the world that they couldn’t tear themselves away from it for 40 minutes while they enjoyed a meal, each other’s company and remembering what the other’s face looked like, or how they each laughed. From where had they just come that they seemed to now be so out of touch? The woman finished with her project and I even heard her ask a few questions, each one answered by moans and grunts, while the guy continued. The only time he put that phone down was to shove a sandwich in his mouth. Then the phone came back up to his face, the bill was paid, and the two left- in silence.

Today I went to a fast food place for a burrito. Next to me a guy sat down. For a moment I thought it was one of the Baldwin brothers, the more famous of them. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and he wore baggy blue sweat pants and a baggy orange shirt. His hair was mussed and I thought had I been close enough, he probably smelled as if he hadn’t showered in a few days, either. On his tray were 8 food items, wrapped in various colors of the restaurants food wrappers, indicating that not only was he hungry enough to order so many items, but that he enjoyed variety.

I looked away for only a minute. When I looked back, there were now 7 items and one balled up piece of paper. I thought little of it, looking out the window to the surfers visible in the ocean just beyond. Now the man had 6 items and 2 balled up pieces of paper. Another glance around my environment and there were 3 items left. Amazed at how quickly his food was vanishing, I found that I simply had to watch. He opened the next item and I saw a taco emerge. It was gone in only 4 bites! His first included a good third of the crunchy treat. I thought, well, he could buy smaller clothes or try to fill out into what he already had. I also imagined that a few years prior, this was a good looking young man, busy in college with an active social life, an active sex life and a healthy interest in a sport or two. But now, here he was, looking like he was on a fast track to becoming the local town hobo and shoving food in his mouth like it was 2012 and the world was about to end.

As I got up to depart, I saw that he was again at the counter and was being handed a plastic bag quite full of more food which he followed me with out the door. Now I thought maybe he was one upping on me. He’d go out for dinner like the rest of us going down hill, but he’d at least take some home as well! Bon appetite, sir.

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Hospital Stay



Photo of my mother’s hospital visit and my left arm with the “Penguin Pox”

On November 25, while visiting family in Colorado for Thanksgiving, I started feeling ill. Mostly, I had the classic symptoms of altitude sickness; tight chest, heavy breathing, headache, lightheadedness. The next day I had a fever and was feeling wrong. I also had developed red spots on my face, neck, arms and legs.

On Thursday I went to the emergency room with a resting heart rate of over 120 beats a minute. They put me on an IV to hydrate me, took some Xrays and a CT of my chest. They were afraid of a blood clot, which was negative. They said the spots were a viral infection and said I had a light case of bronchitis. They medicated me and sent me home.

That night the spots on my body became so painful I could hardly walk. This meant I stopped drinking water, as I couldn’t get up to us the rest room. So on Friday, back to the ER I went. They took me by ambulance to a better hospital in Colorado Springs, as they also wanted to get me to a lower altitude.

By the time I got to Memorial General, I could no longer stand. During my 5 days in hospital, I had a fever of 106, had a biopsy, a spinal puncture, was on oxygen, given lots of drugs, many with needles, and had what seemed to be half my blood taken for tests. There was another Xray and CT scan; I had a constant headache and the spots kept me unable to get comfortable and sleep more than an hour. But also, I could barely stay awake for more than hour at best. My esophagus was pained and even simply rolling from one side to another would have me winded; breathing heavily for a few minutes and elevating my heart rate again.

I was finally well enough to go home on Tuesday to be taken care of by Dr. Mom. But I really longed to be home. So my friend Ra came to the rescue by flying out on Thursday, a week after Thanksgiving, and flying me home on Friday, a week after I was originally scheduled to head back home.

And now, a week after getting out of hospital, I’m still recovering. The spots still exist and cause me a bit of discomfort. My headache is gone but I still feel ill, sort of like a flu, but not as intense. My esophagus, which has been giving me a lot of trouble, is much better. It often tickles a bit and makes me cough. I walk like an old man.

I’ve been assured that I’m not contagious, even though at first, anyone coming into my hospital room had to don a special gown, gloves and a mask. They don’t know what caused my spots, known as Erythema Nodusum. They said going in that they may never be able to identify the underlying virus that infected my system. But they did try, I have the track marks to prove it; on both arms.

In the days after being released, I kept thinking of the things that went through my head while in the hospital. I can’t remember everything, but I wrote down all that I could. Some of it is quite profound, so I thought I’d share it. Following are some of the thoughts and memories I have during my stay in the Springs.

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The family was concerned about the degree to which I snore. Last year at Thanksgiving, in Texas, I wound up sleeping in a tent near the house at my Aunt and Uncle’s ranch.
This year, with a house full of family and being the only single, I was positioned to sleep on the couch fold-out in the central TV room between the two bedrooms. Each day I did a snore check with my family members, who all seem to have to get up a few times a night, so I know they’d be able tell me, and be brutally honest about it as well. Each day I got the all clear, no snores! After the 3rd night I was admitted to hospital after getting a viral infection.
Now the next time someone complains about my snoring, I’ll tell them to go to hell, the last time I stopped for someone it put me in the ER!

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I closed my eyes and I saw a vibrant red ruby floating in the blackness.
I closed my eyes and I saw a sea of what looked like pot leaves. Just the outlines.
I closed my eyes and I saw an ornate black on black texture, very rich looking. In the near distance was a rapidly spinning shiny object. It seemed to be casting off diamonds as it spun. It was shaped like a thimble and spun faster and faster, the bright white diamonds flying from it in all directions, like a mirror ball casting off white light. I was amazed by it and have never seen anything so beautiful in my head before.
I closed my eyes and I saw bushes outside a window.
I closed my eyes and I saw a man standing behind me. His fist was in my chest, clutching it and making me hurt.
I closed my eyes and I saw a huge crowd, as in a stadium, cheering me.
I closed my eyes and I saw a huge throne in front of a large window. It was a red throne and no one seemed to be sitting in it. I thought I might.
I closed my eyes and I saw an ice floe and dark blue water.
I closed my eyes and I saw a large leaf covered by bees. They were just sitting on the leaf with very little movement.
I closed my eyes and I saw s-tubes, as in an ant farm, filled with small white pellets. The pellets were so clear-looking, like I was watching HDTV.
I closed my eyes and I saw thousands of black spots on a gray background.
I closed my eyes and I saw a spiraling river. It flowed rapidly towards infinity.

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I closed my eyes to focus the pain away. I had a vision that I was in a hole, I could look up and see a disc of light above me; a pale light, light blue, like the sun was setting. But I didn’t seem to be in a hole. The darkness was not dirt, but many, many faces. They were looking at me, most of them crying. The water left their eyes and fell at my feet like beads of sand, not at all wet. As the sand rose it felt so good.
But not all the faces were crying. Many were smiling. These seemed to be the faces who understood. They understood life and were not sad for my parting, but happy for my having come in the first place. And happy to see me move on, something I am not afraid of.
I wondered, then, why it was that the crying faces that created the sand could make me feel so well. Was I feeling happy in the sadness of others? I don’t want this! But I realized that it was not the rising sand that was making me feel so warm. It was the simple fact that there were so many faces to begin with.

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I was never scared while in the hospital. I’m not afraid of death. I kept pleading to be put in a coma but I was done with the pain. It’s been pain, not death, that I was afraid of all these years. But not even now did I feel fear of the pain. And I don’t like needles. A hospital is not a good place for such dislikes.
One odd aspect of being in hospital was the randomness in which someone would enter my room and announce that they were there for blood. This was code to me, saying, I’m about to stick you with a needle. They would come at 3am. They would come in at 2pm. Once they came and announced that they needed a blood sample from two different places. So that meant two different needles. They even came an hour before I was discharged; one last bit of blood before you go, please.
What’s worse was that during much of my stay, I was dehydrated, which made it more difficult to find a good vein. One woman seemed to give me a little arm massage as she spent a good 3 or more minutes gently pressing around my arm trying to find one. I was happy at this, for there was another woman who came for blood for who didn’t spend a lot of time, and wound up having to stick me twice for one sample of blood.
But I resigned myself to the fate of what I had to endure. If enduring needles to take my blood meant curing the pain, fine. But it was the pain that I was soon tired of dealing with, and is why I kept asking them to just induce a coma. I was tired of the pain; such intense and constant pain. I was worn down and not sure I could endure much more; it never ended. I understood torture more now. And in my pleas for a coma, only one person ever asked me if I was scared. It’s such an interesting question. “Please, put me in a coma.” “Are you scared?” If asked the right way, it would really sound twisted. But at least it was asked in a way that seemed to indicate that she cared.
No, I’m not scared. And after this, I’m not even quite so scared of pain. I mean, look what I lived through!

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At some point during my stay, I was taken to get one of my red bumps biopsied. I was taken into a standby room and sort of prepped for the procedure. Because I could not stand, they moved my whole bed downstairs for this. The doctor arrived and looked me over and soon I was led into a completely white room. I had only previously seen these rooms on TV. The walls were covered in white tile. The floor was white. The ceiling was white. One thought that went through my head was that this must be one of the oldest rooms in the hospital. Another was, who has to keep this clean?
The doctor selected one of my red bumps, and the 5 others started busily getting ready. Me, still delirious from pain, sort of came and went, watching the ceiling; the big lights; the large column that came down from the ceiling like a periscope on a submarine. I was warned that the anesthetic was a small needle but would be painful. He knew what he was talking about. It hurt, but not as much as the pain I already was in. But it allowed him to scrape the red bump from me down to its core without any discomfort to me.
They took me back to the prep room and I soon was being wheeled back to my 3rd floor room. I had one less red bump than before but now had a suture in its place. The stress helped me sleep for a while, until my pain brought more morphine from the RN. A burn; a sigh of some relief; a feeling of light headedness; more sleep.

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I had been ordered a lumbar puncture so that they could determine if there were any virus in my spinal fluid. Having had lumbar injections in the past with back injuries, I was not overly excited to hear of this.
The two lackeys arrived to move me and my bed to the room for the procedure. I had been fighting a fever of 105 and had endured severe shivers, which lasted over an hour and left me battered. I’d even hyperventilated and the RN spent a good deal of time at my side keeping an eye on my vitals machine. A temperature this high is dangerous, so I’d been kept iced down. When the shivers started, they did take the ice away and gave me blankets. I had 4 blankets on me and I wanted more but was refused. They were very concerned with my fever. So when they wheeled me down for the lumbar puncture, I was not exactly with it to say the least.
I have no memory of the room but I can tell you it was not as white as the biopsy room. I could not tell you how many people were there but I do recall them bantering. I seem to recall being asked to roll over. I left consciousness. Looking back on it now, it’s a scary deal- losing consciousness.
This is being written on my last night in Colorado on this visit. My friend, Ra arrived today to assist me in going home tomorrow. He mentioned something to me today about the lumbar puncture. I’d completely forgotten it even happened. And if I didn’t recall part of the ride down, being asked to roll on my side, and being told it was done, I may not have recalled it at all. I don’t remember the ride back to the room but I do recall the doctor telling me it was all over and I asked, “It’s all over?” I don’t know what time of night or day the procedure was done, although I think they did it Saturday morning.
I think the fact that I don’t remember so much of this event scares me more than knowing what they did and that it most likely was painful.

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On the second night in hospital my pain level reached high limits earlier than normal. Nights seemed to be worse for me than days. I skipped dinner and was asleep around 6pm. When the RN woke me at 10 for vitals and meds, I was in a daze. I thought it was morning. I thought I had slept through the night, mostly beating my viral infection. Surely I could go home now! But it was only 10pm. I still had a whole night to go through. My temp was over 105, my heart raced, my whole body sang out in pain. I thought I might surely die before the sun came up. I called out to Adelie. I cried that there was still so much I wanted to write. Falling asleep with tears in my eyes made me feel more alive for some reason.

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There was a light knock followed by the sound of the door opening. It awakened me. Sleep for more than 20 minutes was really rare at this stage. I was lying on my left side. I was under a sheet and 4 blankets and I was shivering. A nurse was here to check my vitals. Knowing this, I began to move in bed so she’d have better access to my arms. The BP cuff hurt so much as it squeezed my bumps. The finger thing that checked for pulse and oxygen was no issue. My temperature would be taken in the ear; that was the easiest.
Every part of me ached and the spots all over my body were erupting in pain. My chest hurt and I was wearing one of those rotten overstuffed headache hats that I couldn’t tear from my head. With one eye open I looked up to her and pleaded, “Please, put me in a coma. I can’t do this any more.”
“Are you scared?” she asked. “No, I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid of this pain.”
“I know how you feel, dear. Be patient,” was her reply. She did her job, tucked me back in. I sort of passed out from the effort and stayed asleep for 30 minutes or so, until some part of my body moved and the pain would again wake me. I would moan, move, fall back asleep. This was my third night.

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Mom was my only visitor while in hospital. Her visits always seemed a bit odd to me. I always think of my mother as needing to be entertained. I know she can be happy just sitting with a good book, but she never seemed to bring anything with her, so her visits from the start just seemed like they would be brief. I always felt like I was keeping her from something.
I was admitted on a Friday, and she called me that evening to say she wouldn’t be in until the following day. Knowing that she was an hour away, I could understand this. She raised a very independent boy, after all. I would be fine. But I wanted her near me.
At some point on Saturday I opened my eyes from napping and heard her voice. At least I thought it was. Sure enough, there she stood in the medical gown, cap, mask and gloves she would be required to wear while visiting me. With the get up, I couldn’t tell what her expression was. Horror? I looked awful with all those red spots on my face and arms. No, she was calm and clear as far as I could tell. She was strong and independent. And perhaps she was not aware of just how much I hurt.
Her visits were always somewhat brief. On Monday she arrived early, before going to work, which she does in the Springs, so I guess it was convenient for her to be there. To entertain her, I turned on my TV, which was attached to the wall behind my bed on a long arm that I could move and manipulate. I knew I couldn’t stay awake and thought maybe the TV would keep her there longer. I didn’t want her to go and I didn’t want her to be bored.
On another visit, I tried my best to keep a conversation going to entertain her. As I wore down and knew that a nap was coming, I thought about just fading off and I’d see if she would still be there when I awoke. But she knew I was fading and cut things off by announcing that she had some things to do in town and would be by later.
I think it’s funny, my being sicker than ever in my life and still thinking that I needed to keep Mom entertained while I was the one she was there to visit. She brought me a large photo book and a magazine. I was never able to do anything with them and after a few days I asked her to just take them away. (Now that’s sick, if I can’t even read a magazine that I asked her to bring!) But I guess it says a lot about the man she raised.

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I’ve always said that I am not afraid to die. Then as I went through this past week, and there came to me two times that I actually thought I might die, I pleased myself to know that I didn’t back down. I really was not afraid to die. When I really thought I would not leave the hospital alive, I didn’t chicken out and plead for more life. I accepted it, although a bit disappointed that I have not written all that is in my head. I must now work on that, so the next time I think I hear death, I’ll again be content to follow.
But thinking about death and my life has me wonder, have I lived my life well enough? Have I gotten from it what I need, what I should have? Are there holes? Did I do well? There is yes and no for all questions. But I am happy with the footprint I’ve left. I’m happy with my status and the things I’ve accomplished. I’ve done more in my life than so many do in theirs. And even though I feel left out on a good deal of things, I don’t think I got a short stick. I may not know an instrument and made it in a band, but I’ve traveled the world as if I were in one.
The meaning of life is different for all people. Once you discover the meaning of yours and start applying that meaning to your life and living that meaning to its fullest potential, you can never be disappointed in death. You’ve been doing it right. And for that, there is no disgrace. Live life well, take all opportunities, learn, listen and watch, and have few regrets.
The bottom line is this- real or perceived, I came close to dying in the hospital and I have little plans for any change to the manner in which I will live my life. I may have new goals, but I think I’m doing pretty darned good here.

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I’m starting to hear stories of things I don’t remember. Mom tells me I had a nice conversation with Blossom. I do recall that we spoke and I recall him saying I should come up for his birthday later this month. But she told me other things I asked about that I simply don’t recall.
Ra tells me we had almost the same conversation twice. Apparently I didn’t recall the first one. I remember Terry calling to tell me not to worry about the cats, but did we say anything else? My grandmother called nearly each day, but I really don’t even recall those conversations. I hear this is very typical of fevers and pain and hospitals.
I watched very little TV. I remember watching Sponge Bob. I remember laughing at one episode and thinking how nice it was to laugh. I wanted to wait for the next episode, but fell asleep. When I awoke, it was nearly over and I just turned off the TV. Mom says we watched the Today Show together one morning, must have been Monday, but I don’t remember that. For the most part, the noise from the TV simply irritated me and I didn’t have the attention span to watch more than about 15 minutes, which is the length of a Sponge Bob episode. It was rare that I was awake for more than 20 minutes at a time.
And in reading back the text I sent out to a few select good friends, it did not sound like something I would have written, especially in ending it by writing, “pray for me.” As spiritual as I am, I would normally never ask for prayers.
Lesson learned here, I can not be trusted with a phone while feverish. Maybe it was a combination of the pain and the fever, but I was simply not myself during my 5 days in hospital.

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Morphine a poem by Penguin Scott 7Dec09

Four dose an hour
I need me some more
A little burn going in
To even the score
The effects of the light headedness
Will fade in time
But until then enjoy this drip
I’m set up
Ruler of the pain
Seer through the rain
And circling down this golden drain
Sleep tight on the rope
Sweet dream in the dope
An hour more
Then I’ll get another four
Racing through my bones
For a second it gives relief
But I see through the haze
Please are-in, take it from me
I’m done in
By the maze
They drop it in bit by bit
To even the score
Four dose an hour and
I need me some more

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Adventures in Flight: JumpSeat Therapy


Jump Seat Therapy by Penguin Scott 2-21-09

It’s so good to be back home. My two cats are purring and a storm is blowing in with lots of rain and wind. I would have beat the storm had I not had to stop at the store on the way home from the airport. I do love my milk, and since I’m off for the next four days, I needed a few other provisions as well.

I find it difficult to keep track of time with my job. Weeks have little meaning to me, since my schedule is always different and most of my weekends are 3 or 4 days long. But what’s worse is just keeping track of days. I only left yesterday morning, but it seems like it was 3 days ago. It’s hard to imagine I’ve only been gone 41 hours. After all, in that time I’ve been to Vancouver, Chicago (twice) and Buffalo, NY for 19 hours. It’s why I demand my watch have two time zones, one of which I always keep on local time, and also have the day and date. It’s a common affliction with flight attendants; having a hard time keeping up with time.

This was an easy trip; only two days, most flights had light loads, the layover was 19 hours. But yesterday was such a long day- a 12 hour duty day with nearly 8 hours of flight time. The hard part was that I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, when I wasn’t due up until 5:00. I never could get back to sleep. So by the time I arrived in my hotel room at the Hyatt in downtown Buffalo, I was spent. I even passed on the offer of drinks by our pilots, something I normally would not do.

Mostly, there were just the three of us on this trip; myself, my flying partner, Tea, and the purser, Michelle. We were all very close in seniority, my being most senior, which is quite rare! There was one segment of the trip when we were on a larger plane with two others joining us. But otherwise, it was just us three.

One fun aspect of my job is the camaraderie. There is a term commonly used in our industry: jump seat therapy. The jump seat is the fold down seat near each door on the plane where we are assigned to sit. Flight attendants tend to open up and tell their flying partners things most people wouldn’t tell complete strangers. And with over 15,000 flight attendants system-wide, most people we fly with are complete strangers. Well, they start out that way. After a 2-day or more trip with them, you get to know them really well. It’s easy to open up and very therapeutic, so before long one starts to hang all the laundry out.

Tea is a woman in her mid 40s. She lives in the northern part of the East Bay with her husband and two daughters. Well, actually, one daughter, as one just left for college. They are attractive girls, both with natural blond hair, but the one who just left for college had hers dyed red. I know this from Tea’s blackberry, which had a photo of her girls on the front screen. Each time we landed the first thing she would do is pull it out and turn it on. Looking over at it, I had a good view of the photo, so I asked if they were here girls.

This was Tea’s second trip back from a year off for a medical leave. She got an infection on her finger that was similar to a staff infection. She had to go the hospital daily for an I.V. She was a little rusty and full of questions. “What are the new rumors of a merger? How do you do the new liquor paperwork? Now that we staff 757s with four, how do we work the service? Do we still have the nice downtown layover in Chicago?” Just simple questions, normal for someone who’s been gone for a while, and I was happy to give the answers I could. She was not rusty on the beverage cart, though. She was quite prompt, in fact. But I have a tendency to say hi or strike up a small conversation with passengers when I’m delivering drinks, so there are times I seem slow in my service. So many flight attendants just fling the drink at you and move on. And all of our flights had plenty of time, so I was even more encouraged to be polite.

Tea liked to name drop. On her time away from flying, she had volunteered for the Obama campaign. She was even invited to attend a speech in Phoenix where she got to stand right behind him as he gave his address. She got to meet him as well, and his wife. Later, she would plop down next to me with her lap top to show me photos. They were much like any photo I’ve ever seen of Barack or of Michelle, although I have yet to see a photo of the silver shoes Mrs. Obama wears. “My daughter asked me to take a picture of her shoes,” she told me when I chuckled at the shot.

Her friend just lost a dog, who was more a child to her. She took 2 weeks from work to grieve. When she heard that a famous actor had just lost his dog, this friend of hers, who makes jewelry, designed a necklace for him with a photo of his dog in it. She found the name of the actor’s agent and got in touch with them to see if he would be interested in having her send it to him. They asked if she could do so within two days, before he left for the Oscars. He was so excited to receive the necklace, he called her to thank her and wants to meet with her for dinner.

There were other names dropped. But as usual, as I sat on the jump seat, my interest was more in line with seeing what I could out of the small windows we have to see out of. With my airplane disease (obsession with planes), I like to see the airport, the runways and the planes taxiing. I like the views as we ascend or descend and of the clouds. I’m often deep in thought and tuning out most of what the women sitting next to me are spewing out, trying only to catch the important parts so that later I can regurgitate some of it so they think I was listening.

It’s different sitting next to another guy. We can sit in silence for 10 or 15 minutes and not be afraid that we don’t like one another. And if the guy next to me has little in common with me, it’s not uncommon to remain silent for nearly the entire trip. And that’s just fine with guys. There are always the standard questions, whether flying with a man or a woman, which are: what is your seniority, where do you live, if they commute, where do you commute to, where did you grow up and what did you do before becoming a flight attendant? Most flight attendants cover these basics at some time or another in the trip, whether you are with them for one flight or six. And talk of union and work issues is almost always guaranteed to carry us through the down times of the flight.

Whereas Tea liked to drop names, Michelle really liked to talk. I didn’t really notice that she was so addicted to speaking as she is until we got in the van to drive to our hotel last night in Buffalo. Michelle worked up front and I was in back with Tea. Tea set up the galley on each leg, which meant I greeted passengers up at door one, right next to Michelle. She did have a habit of interrupting me when I was speaking. She did have a lot to say. But when we got in the van (after twelve hours of working, eight hours of flying, we were tired, it was dark and the ride took us about 20 minutes) she talked. I was in the beginning of what would eventually become the worst migraine headache I’d had in years…many, many years. Out of the airport, she talked; along the freeway, she talked; through downtown, she talked more. When the headache again woke me this morning at 3am, I couldn’t help but wonder if wasn’t from all the talking.

Michelle was a little younger than Tea, and me; I’d guess she was in her late 30s. She just celebrated her ninth wedding anniversary the night before our trip. They had gone out to dinner, and while she wasn’t up too late, she was tired. A few years ago she bought her first new car, all others had been bought used. It was a 4runner, which is what I drive, but I wasn’t able to relay that information to her. It was stolen when it had 8,000 miles on it, which for some reason made it difficult to sell, which she had to do because the payments got to be too high. She was able to sell it and buy another car and pay it off 2 years sooner than she would have done with the 4runner. Now her only payment is her mortgage.

Michelle lives with her husband in Walnut Creek and mostly takes BART to the airport. I’m not sure how the car thing came up. I’m not sure why she started to talk about her sister and her brother in law and their house. Then I’m not sure what else she spoke of as I was doing all I could to phase her out and take in the sights of Buffalo.

At one point I was yelling at her in my head, “Shut up! You have not stopped talking for more than five seconds. I need some silence! Oh my god!” It was sort of funny, actually. It’s for times like these I wished I didn’t keep my MP3 player packed in my bag, which was stored in the back of the van, where I couldn’t reach it. My kingdom for some earplugs!

When we got out of the van, the captain made a comment to me about her chatter, “Sheesh, I make one comment about a car payment and it propelled her through the rest of the trip.” “I know,” I told him, “thank goodness this is only a 2-day trip. But I’m used to it as this is quite common with a lot of flight attendants.”

Back on the plane today, there would be times I went to the front of the plane to tell her something. She’d start in on a story and I’d wait patiently to for her to finish in order to get out that which I had to say. I’d finally have to give up on waiting, find a moment when she was taking a breath, and blurt it out only hoping she wouldn’t interrupt me. She did end up buying me an order of Buffalo wings at the airport in New York. She was very nice and treated passengers well. She was simply addicted to speech. And where I normally wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone buying me dinner, in this case I took it as compensation.

People were all nice on this 2-day trip. Our flight up to Vancouver was light and the last row of seats were left empty. We blocked them off so passengers wouldn’t take them. We call this our ‘lounge’. I’d been up so early and was already tired. After we finished the service, I took a seat in the lounge and looked out the window. Below was a large city along side a river and on the other side were some hills. I studied the downtown closer, lots of buildings, it was a good-sized city. I forgot where we were going for a moment, thinking maybe we were going to Chicago, and wondered if it was St. Louis. I found the major airport, and it wasn’t where the airport in St. Louis would be, and I couldn’t see the arch. I kept trying to think of what this city might be, thinking in my head of all the cities between San Francisco and Chicago. Then I realized that we were going north along the West Coast and the city was Portland. Ah, Portland; I have good friends down there. I jumped to the other side for a view of the snow-topped mountains. It was gorgeous. As well as having a hard time keeping track of days, we often forget to where it is that we are going.

We were only in Vancouver for an hour or so before setting off for Chicago, where we had just over two hours before our third flight to Buffalo. I spent my time on the computer working trip trades for the following month.

As we boarded our flight to Buffalo, a young boy of about 7 or 8 walked on the plane. I said hello to him and he looked up at me and said, “I love god.” I was a bit shocked to hear this. It’s not every day I hear this from a small child. “That’s, um, great!” I replied. His mother was just behind him and smiled to us as she informed us he had just received a new cross on his necklace and was referring to that.

After he passed, Michelle asked if she heard him correctly. This brought up a discourse on how religion on children is nothing more than brainwashing. “I mean, they believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny just as much as whatever religion their parents are shoving down their throat.” I was brought up with different views, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Shaman and Paganism. I agreed that perhaps it was best to treat religion like a subject in school and allow a young adult to find the path of their own choosing. I couldn’t disagree.

But then there was the girl on my flight home tonight from Chicago in seat 34G. She sat next to her mother who, on both of their tray tables, had spread out a virtual buffet of food; a feast for the two of them. I made a comment about this and the girl informed me of her loose tooth, thinking it might even come out during flight. I smiled back to her and said, well, at least if that happens up here, you’ll be closer to the Tooth Fairy! She smiled a toothy grin and looked over at her mom in excitement. She hadn’t thought of that! Funny how we let go of certain myths and hold dearly to others.

We were late arriving, which put a bind on Michelle’s schedule. She had a train to catch home or she’d have to end up spending the night in the airport. She left quickly so Tea and I walked to the bus together, then to the elevator in the garage. She got off on the 5th floor and we said farewell. Another trip was over. It was an easy week, but I’m ready for my 4-day weekend. I don’t know when I’ll see Tea or Michelle again. But I always carry extra aspirin; and I’m always ready for my next session of jump seat therapy.

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Adventures in Flight: Pamper Me

Story and photo at Osaka airport by Penguin Scott

A week off. I can fly for free. I’ve been working very hard. I needed to be pampered and wanted to go somewhere. My trip to Israel was postponed, so I started to think about places to go. I’m a flight attendant, but my wanderlust was out of control.

Vietnam? Needs a visa, no time to get one.

Moscow? I’d rather go in spring. Oh, and we haven’t started flying there, yet.

Frankfurt? Not bad, light loads. But I’ve been there.

South America. Fun, but I didn’t really feel like having to sit in IAD for a few hours.

Seoul; to see BadKitty? She sort of nixed the idea. Not much time off and her little space would have been difficult. I sort of agreed.

New Zealand to see Annika? A bit far to go for such a short amount of time.

Japan? I’ve not been there in so long, I love it there. Flight’s not too long. OK, Japan. I love Narita, best noodle shop in the world, caters to all the airlines that stay there. The airport there has more 747s than any other airport in the world. I love me some 747s. I once spent a layover hanging out at the airport there. How many flight attendants on layover go back to hang out at the airport? I’m funny that way.

But oh, no, we only fly the 777 to NRT and I want to fly in the new OC. Our new 747OC has been reconfigured for international travel. The seats in business lie flat. The suites in first are upgraded with better audio-visual and even games. It’s really sweet.

Osaka flights are on the OC. So I was listed to KIX. I checked the paperwork. OC to KIX for 3 hours. Then, due to budget constraints, right back on the same plane. I’d be in KIX for only three hours. I had some writing projects to work on. I had some reading I could do. There would be movies on board to enjoy. I was not all worried about spending 19 hours on a plane.

At a party the night before I was to leave, a good friend mentioned how she hates planes and airports. I love planes. I love being on them, taking off, landing; and in first class…what’s not to love? And as I just stated, I love hanging out at airports. One person’s ceiling is another’s floor. One’s junk is another’s treasure.

I got to the airport and went to the gate. I took my seat and waited for my name. I thought they might call it early since the loads were so light; 4 in first, 20 in business and 119 in coach. But they waited until the plane was mostly boarded. As I waited, I heard an announcement for some names, stating there were some seat changes made due to the change in aircraft. Panic struck when I turned to see that the nose number of the jumbo sitting just out the window was different. They had changed the plane to an OB, not the newly configured OC. I thought briefly about ditching the trip and just going home. But I was already there, ready to go, so I might as well just enjoy the meals and pampering.

My seat was 2J. Stowed my things, settled in, drank a cup of champagne and sat in my seat like it was my throne. Oh, I can do first class. I even hid any baggage identifiers that would give me away as being crew. As far as any other passengers knew, I was a full-paying passenger, just as they were. (They were probably standby’s as well, though!)

Take off happened and soon I was reclined with a file of work out. The purser took my meal order, brought me warm nuts and another glass of champagne. It was a Henriot Cuvee des Enchanteleurs 1999. I’m not picky on champagne. I enjoy $3 bottles as much as the $80 bottles. And let me tell you, this was a good bottle.

I continued to work on one of my future novels while eating the warm nuts. I save the cashews for last, since they are my favorites. There were also almonds, pecans and macadamias. I started eating the pecans and realized that I normally pick around them. I sort of felt obligated to eat them, being from Texas and with the pecan tree being the official state tree. I love them in recipes and pies. But normally, I just go for my favorites, the cashews and macadamias.

My work was cut short when the hot towel was delivered, meaning my meal was about to start. I put it aside to be worked on later.

First out was a shrimp, bacon and corn cake with jalapeño shallot crème fraiche. The bacon was a wonderful touch and the sprigs of cilantro really made this dish for me. A bread basket was brought out and I selected the pretzel roll, warmed to perfection and complete with a wonderful pretzel coating.

Next was the soup, artichoke chicken Florentine with wonderful full flavor, great body and quite thick with great chunks of chicken. I could have made a meal out of it, but there was more to come. As I finished the soup, the salad was brought out on the queen cart. Fresh season greens with red bell peppers, yellow teardrop tomatoes and seasoned croutons. I selected the classic Caesar dressing, thank you, and don’t forget the fresh ground pepper.

For the main course I enjoyed rosemary lemon Mediterranean sea bass with tomato and olive ragout. It was sided with a creamy vegetable risotto and green and yellow haricots verts. The fish had a slight fish taste that was not overbearing. I enjoyed my entrée with a glass of white wine. I always have a hard time leaving the champagne, but the Jolivet Shateau du Nozay 2006 Sauvignon blanc made it easy to do. In fact, later in the flight, instead of more champagne, I had more white wine. It was light and fruity without being too sweet.

Finally the plates were removed and the queen cart came by with dessert: a choice of seasonal fruits and cheeses and ice cream sundaes. I had a sundae, chocolate sauce and cookie, hold the whipped cream. It was a bowl of two scoops, one vanilla, the other chocolate. I round it off with a glass of Sandeman’s porto.

I don’t often order chocolate ice cream. It’s not on my list of favorites. But when I do indulge, it reminds me of my grandmother. I spent my summers at her house and she often pulled out ice cream at night for dessert. I think my grandfather was a fan. He always made coke floats with vanilla. But I guess chocolate was a favorite of hers, so when I have it now, I always think of her.

With the meal over, I continued to work on my novel. It’s one that’s been mulling around in my head for about 13 years now. I’m finally working out the details. I worked on the timeline of the main character’s parents, their ages, where they lived, how they met, etc. I had a file folder full of ideas that I’d been putting in there for all these years. It was great to finally be fleshing out some of the details for this book. But with so many projects on deck right now, I doubt I’ll actually start writing it just yet. It’s just nice to have some of this figured out.

After a nap and more wine, we were soon to land in Osaka. Before doing so, there was another meal service. I mean it had been six hours since the last one. This service was much less formal. It came out on one tray, no queen cart. This time it was a beef pastrami sandwich with baby Swiss on rye with oven roasted fingerling potatoes and fresh fruit. It was warmed so the cheese was all gooey and melted. I really liked this and don’t recall ever having served it.

Soon we were touching down and the wonderful service was but a memory; the hot towels, the clean linens, the cold flatware, the butter in shapes of flower petals, fresh ground pepper and attentive flight attendants.

We landed around 4pm local time. I had taken off around 1130. Basically, the sun had only moved the equivalent of about 4 hours. Since I had taken off, the plane barely moved, as more as the earth had moved under me. It made me think, there must be a place on the globe and a speed to fly in which the sun would remain in the same place all the time. The plane would never move, only the earth under it. How fascinating.

Off the plane, through security, back to the gate and back on the same plane home. On board I found that one of the flight attendants serving me would be a woman I had worked with not too long ago. It was good to see her, but now my cover was blown. The previous crew had known I was crew, it’s on the passenger manifest. But soon the word was spread that I was a crew member and that I had just brought this plane in. The purser came to check on me and wondered why I’d be doing such a flight. “I wanted to be pampered and to fly the OC.” She felt badly about the plane change. She did well for the rest of my flight to ensure that I was taken care of.

Going home, I enjoyed more champagne, of course, and more warm nuts. I refused seconds on the nuts, but the champagne flowed freely. The appetizer was a shrimp, scallop and cilantro potsticker with roasted red pepper sauce, creamy curry apple soup, and fresh seasonal greens, this time with blue cheese dressing. Again, I selected a sea bass, this time it was wrapped in rice paper and pan-seared with lemon butter soy sauce with pak choy, carrots and cauliflower. After my meal I watched Ghost Town, which was funny, then fell asleep. I slept for about 5 hours, waking just before the breakfast service. I selected the fruit and yogurt, since the omelette was listed as an onion omelette. Ew.

In all, I was gone for about 25 hours. I was on the ground in Japan for 3 hours. I had 2 really nice meals, nearly 2 bottles of champagne, 4 glasses of white wine, 2 glasses of red, 2 servings of port wine, worked on 2 books and watched a movie. It was nice. And it only cost me the gas to get from my home in Pacifica to the parking garage at work. I do love my job.