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Only Time Will Tell


Photo and story by Penguin Scott

It’s not so much that my past is haunting me as I have gone searching for it lately. It’s an easy task in that access to information on the Internet has made it so. But it’s a heavy task, as the past and how it changes, or my tendency to age, weighs down on the man I have become.

In 1994, I was living in Houston, TX, working a job I enjoyed in a downtown office building. Although I’d not really given much thought to the longevity of this particular job, I felt confident enough in buying a house.

The neighborhood in which I lived was only three miles from downtown. It was right off the Buffalo Bayou, along which I enjoyed taking walks. While not quite part of the area known as the Heights, it was an older neighborhood, fairly well kept up, and I loved living there. Some of the homes had been torn down and in their places were built sturdy, modern town homes, so the area definitely had a lot of life left in it.

What I loved about the house I found a few blocks from my apartment was that it was on a street that shared my last name, Scott. I thought, surely there’s not another Scott living here on Scott St., which gave it extra appeal.

What’s even better was how much I loved the house. My realtor let me in and I fell in love. The home had been updated, including a modern arched wall separating the kitchen and dining room. The detached garage had been converted into a studio with a bathroom and laundry area. The attic was now a loft, for either storage or even an office, except that access to it was up a wooden ladder and not stairs. The yards were lush; full of gardens, shrubs, trees and grass. And at $70,000, it was in my price range.

I wound up moving to Maryland to open a family business and never bought that house on Scott St. But I’ve thought about it often; what would my life have been like had I bought that house and never moved to Maryland? Or at least held on to it and rented it out after leaving Texas.

Last week I got on Google Maps, which has a feature where one can see a street view of almost any address. I’ve used it to see what the houses I grew up in now look like. I found the house I’d lived in as a small boy. The house in which I lived, on Steel St., was second from the corner. On the other side were another four or so houses before the next street. Those four houses were now gone! Currently in their place is an antique mall. But my house, and one on the corner, where Yvette lived, were still there; big, full trees in the yard, which, were I to find old photos, I’m sure were only as big as me when I was in residence.

It was in the bushes between my house and Yvette’s, where she and I would play. And by play, I mean do things little kids are not supposed to do, like lighting matches and figuring out that her physiology and mine were quite different. We were only six. It’s also from these bushes that I first started to watch airplanes flying overhead, noticing the orange bellies of the Southwest 737s approaching Hobby Airport to our south. Quite a few really fond memories still reside there for me.

Steel St. wasn’t too far from Scott St., so after a quiet celebration that my old abode was still standing, I moved the map in search of the house that was almost mine on Scott.

Gone! My house was gone and in its place was one of those monstrosities; a huge modern duplex with garages on the ground floor and living areas on the top two. What’s worse is knowing that they probably sold the house for three times what I would have bought it for. And had I bought it, that could be my profit, not someone else’s.

After letting this settle in for a bit, I thought about the Houstonian Hotel a few miles away. I once worked there with the Secret Service. It was the early ‘90s and George H. W. Bush was president. As such, he didn’t have a home, and used the Houstonian as his official residence. So when he wanted to escape to Texas, this is where he’d come. And in my role as a security officer, I briefed the White House staff and Secret Service special detail agents about the Houstonian grounds. Having all the keys, I was also the one to grant agents and the Bush’s access to closed areas of the grounds after hours, such as the huge fitness center. This is the manner in which I was able to meet George and Barbara, and their framed autographs are now some of my more favorite personal effects.

I was astonished to find the changes made to the hotel and grounds. First thing that I noticed were the old homes along the entrance. They had been leveled in favor of a small office building. And much of the land the property once sat on was given up for homes, now only a stones throw from the hotel. When I worked there, you’d have thought it located in the middle of no where. Trees were all you could see in any direction, save the towering condo building near the entrance to the property. Now there’s a new pool, no wait, two! The old Phoenix Spa was redone and renamed and the hotel lobby is new and rich, for only the most sophisticated of tastes. I guess when they gave up on the grounds they had to enhance the interior.

Another thing the Internet is good for is searching for old friends. There are still a few who I’d love to find, like my best friend in third grade, Robert Pearson. He’s impossible to find, as there seem to be 18 million Robert Pearsons, and I have no idea where he’s settled down.

Thinking that maybe he’d search for me, I created a Facebook account. It started off great, as soon, many old friends from my days in Houston and from high school in Dallas were finding me. I even got friended by an ex girlfriend, who at one time seemed to have me in her sights for matrimony. I took a pass and she landed on some other guy and now has a kid, to boot!

But soon, my current friends started finding me and before I knew it I had nearly 200 friends on Facebook. And it wasn’t just a collection of people, but each and every one was someone that I knew. And some were blood family! And all, it seemed, felt it necessary to comment and to invite me to causes and events. I’d log on and there would be page after page of things to read or to catch up on. Paul is waiting for his flight at the airport. Clara is missing her boyfriend, who’s out of town. Matt just had Chinese food. Emily sent me a flower and wants me to send one back. Joe sent me an invite to the Yuma alien wars game.

So I abandoned Facebook as I simply could not handle knowing all the minutia of things going on with all the people I was connected with on the site. I still keep my profile up, as I do still hear from old friends. And from time to time I still search on it for people I want to reconnect with.

So it is, with my recent quest to relive the past that I got on again and started to search. Besides Robert, there’s an old friend from New Jersey who I’ve wondered about. We used to be like brothers, as good of friends as they ever made. We were well aligned philosophically, both loved the Star Wars movies, had the same family business and became old friends the moment we met while vacationing in the Bahamas.

In 2000, when I changed jobs and moved to California, his communications with me ceased; what I called the great silence. After a few years, the great silence ended and we started talking again, picking up like nothing happened. But then the silence returned, and before you know it, it’s been 6 years since I’ve heard from him.

I typed his name on the Facebook search, and there he was, smiling back at me with his wife and child. Should I be so bold as to send him a note? Should he send me a friend request back? Shall we pick up where we left off? Can I handle more reminders of the years that pass and my slow crawl on the messy floor of aging as my once single friend is now a family?

The note was sent and his friendship request was received, making Vince Facebook friend number 202. As for the rest, only time will tell. And as things around me continue to change in an attempt to constantly remind me that I am getting older, I will continue refusing to act my age!

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Mrs. Booker

When I was eight I lived on Creekbend Dr. in the southeast side of Houston. At one end of Creekbend was a park; I lived at the other end. To find the house that I lived in, head up the long first block, then cross a street, which ended at Creekbend. Ours was the brick house with brown trim, second from the corner of the second block.

Other than the community swimming pool, the park at the end of our street wasn’t necessarily the fun kind of park, with swings, trees and such. It was just an open, grassy area with a few basic baseball diamonds and plenty of room for a football or soccer game. And at the opposite end of the park from the street on which I lived was the elementary school at which I attended third grade.

Thinking back on those days has always given me warm feelings. I’ve often felt that the time I spent in third grade was my favorite time in life. The oppressive Houston heat never bothered me then. I had a yellow Schwinn bicycle that I loved to ride. I was active in Cub Scouts and played soccer. I enjoyed school and remember many of the things I learned back then to this day. In fact, I seem to remember more of the things I learned in the third grade than any other grades. I’m not saying I didn’t learn much outside of third grade; after all, I did graduate high school with honors. But the things I learned when I lived on Creekbend have always stuck with me.

It was in third grade that I learned such things as the basics of geography and of the four directions. I also learned the basics of astronomy, which in college would be my favorite subject, along with history. It was in the third grade where I first learned about the concept of time, and how we would be reaching the year 2000, when I would be 32. I got my first wrist watch during this time; it was a racecar watch; a gift from my grandparents.

Every day, after school I would play with Robert, my best friend who lived two houses up from me. We used to watch TV shows and make tin foil boats to float in make believe rivers flowing through worlds created in the sandbox in his back yard. He and I created a language of code that no one else could understand and we often found ourselves playing in the hills of construction dirt, hiding behind them as we threw dirt clumps and small rocks at one another–war. Star Wars was our favorite movie and my C-3PO impression kept all the kids laughing. And it was during the third grade that my brother was born. Ah, Creekbend- so many great memories. I even convinced a dim neighborhood kid that I was from Pluto when he asked where I had come from after jumping out of a tree just behind him. Good times.

Since we lived so close, I would walk to school each day. It wasn’t far at all, but back then, to a nine-year old, it sure seemed to be. Parker Elementary was shaped like an E, with three wings extending from a main wing with the cafeteria and auditorium near the bottom wing of the E. My classroom was at the end of the hall and looked into the courtyard between the top wing of the E and the center. In command of this square room was Mrs. Booker, our teacher.

Mrs. Booker was a short-thick woman with light colored hair. Thinking back on her now, she was probably in her thirties. The one thing that always stands out to me about her was the way she wore her sweaters. Her bosom was ample and the sweaters were tight. She used a wooden pointing stick and at times, like when waiting for a student to give her an answer, she would bounce it off of the stretched material between her breasts. The stick would bounce back and forth- to and fro. She used the resilient force of her sweater to bring the stick forward and let it fall back again on its own, keeping me mesmerized as she did this. There were times she didn’t have her stick, but instead a ruler. But just as with the stick, Mrs. Booker would bounce that ruler on the sweater between her breasts, oblivious to the amazement going on in my head at the sight.

I loved Mrs. Booker – and no, not for the sweater trick. I loved her for the things she taught me. One day I did poorly on a spelling test. After she passed the results back to the students, she came around to go over them with most of us. One of the words I missed was “creek”. When she reached my desk she pointed this out to me with the question: how could I miss that word when I lived on Creekbend?

At first I was amazed that she knew the street on which I lived. But what she had just done was helped me realize how the world, or learning, was inter-connected. It hadn’t dawned on me to utilize my knowledge of spelling my street’s name to figure out how to spell creek. There were numerous resources at my finger tips. I was now on the path to super genius status thanks to one question from my third grade teacher.

When I think back on Mrs. Booker, it’s not for this that I most remember her, however. That was but a small example of the impression she left on me. It’s not for teaching me east from west, nor for her role as teacher during what I now call my great brain expansion. What I remember her for, more than anything else, was opening my eyes to color. Not the spectrum of color, but in people- skin color.

During what I must now presume was February, since that’s Black History Month, I recall Mrs. Booker getting us all quiet and settled down one afternoon and she started telling us about black people. She said many had been brought from Africa and been enslaved. She said blacks had endured many hardships living in America, but since the late sixties, had come a long way in gaining equal rights. But then she got more serious, her eyes squinting and her head moving closer to us, and she said there was still a long way to go.

For the first time since I’d met her, I saw that Mrs. Booker was a black woman. I looked around the room at my classmates and saw that some of them were also black. Others, I realized, were brown. And at the front of the class, my black teacher then thrust her left arm towards us and with her right hand showed us that the color of her skin doesn’t rub off. I thought this was silly, and had she not been so stern-looking, I might have let slip a laugh; the thought of skin color rubbing off. But the image was one that kept with me for many years.

That day, as I walked down Creekbend Dr. on my way home, I studied the people I passed to see who was white and who was black. Then I started to remember people in my past, friends of my mom and the bus driver at my previous school, who were black. I had never noticed.

I recalled my paternal grandparents, who grew up in the Texas Hill County, referring to some people as colored, or as worse. Those terms would never again sit well with me. I understood about prejudice being in the world without even having to study it. Not to say that my grandparent’s were necessarily prejudiced. They grew up in a world where that is simply what they called black people. I never recall them saying anything untoward of a black person. They used the terms as they would to call someone a German or a farmer or a bus driver…colored.

As I got older I could see the prejudice others had towards people who were different from them all around me. And it wasn’t just directed towards blacks; Jews, hicks, Asians, Muslims, anyone different. And as I was witness to it, I would often study it, much like a dog might study a new person in their midst. I wanted to better understand how people could feel a certain way about a group of others without any sound reason. As you can see, before Mrs. Booker, it was quite foreign to me.

What I found, especially in my friends or acquaintances, was that it appeared to be passed down from their parents. Mom never allowed me to judge a book by its cover. I was taught to look things up when I went to her with questions; to be independent and free-thinking. So I realized how fortunate I was not to have picked up bigotry from my home, as so many others around me had.

So I’m quite proud that it took my third grade teacher to open my eyes to skin tones and prejudice. It’s not something I learned at home. And for that I thank my mother…and Mrs. Booker.

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Morristown, NJ


Photo by Penguin Scott

May 28 2008

Long Newark layovers have always been an enjoyable trip, excepting for the 6am departures to go back home. A 0430 pickup means waking up at 0330. That’s 1:30am to me, being that I live in San Francisco. And I’m a night owl, so I’m usually going to bed about the time of our pickup, unless I have to be up for work, of course.

Since hotels in New York are so expensive, we stay about 20 minutes away in a little sleepy town in NJ. Morristown is very historic as well. There are markers for locations where Hamilton met with spies and with French diplomats. There is a cemetery with markers from the 1700’s. George Washington directed troops in the Continental Army here. He was headquartered here, slept here, etc. The fact he slept there, always a big deal it seems, anywhere Washington slept, makes me wonder about the other suppositions that go along with it. Washington must also have pissed in the woods, among other things!

I enjoy finding new things to do on my layovers here in Morristown. I once walked to the Ford mansion, where Washington was based. Once I walked up to Speedwell Lake, a small lake about a mile away with a nice little trail to follow amongst the tall trees and lots swans, ducks and water rings formed from the fish poking their noses into the surface of the lake.

I wanted to see something new for this trip so I got on line and poked around and found out that a few blocks away was a fort on top of a hill. It was called Fort Nonsense. It got its name from the troops who were sent there to build a fort and encampment for about 30 men. Raised above the small town, it was to serve as a lookout for the British and a signal fire, or beacon was to be built to signal troops in the region to gather at preselected meeting points to react to the emergency. The troops thought the work was nonsense, prepared to keep them busy. But Gen. Washington always garnished having the high ground in any situation.

After getting some sleep to recover from my red eye trip, I awoke to beautiful, cloudless day. It was about 70 degrees with a light breeze. I had heard one can see Manhattan from the top of Ft. Nonsense, so I was lucky to have such a nice day to make my viewing of it.

It was quite close, a nice, steep walk up the road to the top. I was alone, save for an ambulance and its crew of 3 who were talking to a guy on a motorcycle. I found a picnic table at which to sit and ponder some things going on in my life for a bit, watching a cute little chipmunk make its way near me; then after finding out I had nothing to offer, scampered off in another direction.

After my break, I walked around, reading the various informational signs that littered the park. They outlined the fort’s history, gave info on the foundaries of the area, informed of troop activities and named Washington’s temporary home nearby.

There were not many good vantage points to get a view, considering that I on top of a hill that I estimate as being about as high as a 20-story building, due to the numerous and high trees. I gathered from the drawings on the plaques that these trees had mostly been chopped down in the late 1700s.

As I approached the one decent opening of trees I passed the 4 other people at the fort, nodding a greeting as the walked from the view back towards the ambulance. However, one guy came up towards me. He smiled at me and asked if I was a history buff. I told not so much, but was just enjoying another thing to do in Morristown, explaining my business here. I told him I’d heard there was a view of Manhattan, but was disappointed in not seeing it. So he walked me down into the grass a bit and started showing me the layout.

To the east is a ridge of mountains, about 600 feet high. This mostly blocks the view, but you can see a few things. He showed me where the Empire State Building was, the spires of the George Washington Bridge, and where the Trade Center Towers used to stand. I was amazed at how far apart it seemed to be, then realized that I was only seeing the top 15 or so floors of the ES building. Were to be on that ridge, closer to town, I would be shown a wondrous view of the city, he told me.

Next he pointed out a few other points of interest; a nearby collage, a water tower-200 feet from which, is where he lived- the hospital he was based in. The hospital is known for it’s heart work. They don’t do transplants there, but soon will be. I told him I hope to never have to find out how well they are!

It was very nice of him to show me these things. I introduced myself and found out his name is Brian. He and his crew do specials, meaning the only transport patients from one hospital to the next, they don’t respond to emergencies. They had a rare occurrence of some downtime and came to the park to relax.

It’s one thing to be able to visit a town and read up on some of its history. It’s another to be able to meet a local get a behind the scenes sort of look and knowledge I would never get on my own. Like Morristown being the seat of the 2nd wealthiest county in the country; the base of many corporations, and the stopping place for some of the elite. The Vanderbilt’s once lived “over there”, Whitney Houston lives in the area, as well some high named Wall St. investors.

The time for our visit came to an end. I walked back down the hill to find many of the workers getting off from work and filling the sidewalks to make their way to their cars and homes.

Like Washington in 1777, I now prepare to rest for the night in the same town he once did. Unlike our founding father, I have a Hyatt bed and soft pillows. I’m also not afraid of the British invading at any given time.

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My Glorious Hike


Photo by Penguin Scott in Colorado

by Penguin Scott 4-4-09

It was a glorious day. The sun was out, the sky was a crystal blue, a slight breeze came off the ocean and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. I decided to head out for a walk before going to a party later in the evening.

A few days ago, my neighbor had told me about a place one can hike to get a grand view of the surrounding area. Living near the Pacific and just south of San Francisco has its benefits. There are great mountains and trails for hiking, as well as areas right along the ocean. It’s such a fantastic mixture of city and wilderness.

I drove to the place she told me about and started up. It was a tough little hike, going at such a great incline. But I could tell from looking at the summit the view would be a reward worthy of the effort; so I kept going.

Before long I reached the summit of a hilltop. And the view really was spectacular. Not only could I see the whole area in which I lived in Linda Mar and the ocean stretching out to the West, but I could see north, along Highway One, to part of the city, and even the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge were visible.

Here, there was a fence, some shrubs and a lone tree, which, for a short while, provided some necessary shade. I erred in wearing a long sleeve black shirt, as it was absorbing all the heat of the sun and made me very warm. I couldn’t take it off, since I had no sun screen, so I endured.

Were I to cross this fence and follow the trail onwards, I could see that it wound around and led to the top of the horizon of hills that ran north and south. I didn’t plan on a long hike, I should have turned back at this point, but I just knew if I kept going I would get to see the bay. So I crossed the fence and kept going.

The weather was fantastic, a cool breeze was blowing. Hawks circled above. Small birds played amongst the shrubs and moles, or some sort of burrowing animals, made their presence known from all the little mounds of fresh dirt they shoved from under the trail. I was really enjoying this hike, seeing the mountains in the area from a perspective I’ve not seen them from before.

I finally reached my goal, the summit, a long and often hard trek, making me breathe harder than I have in a long time, my feet ached and head was tired of the hat that shielded my face from the sun, which still bore its heat down upon my back as it sunk lower in the West. But I reached the summit to see a stone. Upon reading it I found this to be the place from which the Portola Expedition first discovered the bay. I felt like I was on top of the world.

Below was the San Andreas Fault, with a small lake. Beyond that was highway 280 and SFO airport. Then the bay and across that was Oakland. I could see San Bruno Mountain and Coyote Point. Behind me, that massive ocean; and to either side, a trail embarked upon the ridge of the mountains.

I sat for a bit and watched it all. I saw a mouse scurry across the trail to my left. I could smell the eucalyptus trees nearby. I was all alone.

After a bit, I decided I needed to head back. My little one mile hike was now a four mile hike and I needed to get ready for the party. I had hoped to nap first, but it was almost six and I needed to leave at seven.

Getting back to my car was much easier than the hike up. There were some spots I had to climb on the way back, but for the most part, it was all downhill. As I got into my car and drank some water I had there, I thought to myself, I’m really going to regret this tomorrow! My feet were sore, my thighs pulsed and my knees ached. Getting old is so much fun!

I got home and saw that I had about 20 minutes to get ready. I started the shower and undressed. The hot water felt really good. I felt an odd sensation on my left calf, like a flea bite. I instinctively reached down and scratched it, noticing that there was more there than just my leg. I looked down and shrieked in horror! I was in such a state, that at this time, I cannot correctly recall the noise that emitted from me, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty- or very manly.

“A flipping tick!” (Flipping was not the actual word I used, the word I used was more manly.)

I wanted to faint. My alpha cat, Adelie came into the room and was quite vocal. I had scared him and he thought there was something very wrong. I called back to him to calm him down and tell him I was OK. I finished cleaning myself off, avoiding the tick, which looked to me like I’d done some damage to it when I tried to scratch the itch. It was just there, its legs dangling, looking like it was trying to dig to China via my leg. I thought of an ostrich with its head in the sand, the way it looked on me.

Adelie was having a fit, even so much as to come into the shower with me! I had a tick in my leg and a cat in my shower, screaming at me, while I’m yelling back at him to calm down and get out. I turned off the water and dried off. The cat is calmer now, but wanting to rub up against me. I’m wet, so I push him away, still very conscious of the eight legged creature attached to me.

I couldn’t quite reach the tick, it was on the outside of my left calf, and I’m very right handed. I threw on some shorts and a shirt and headed upstairs to find my neighbor for her assistance. She was not home. What do I do now? Mom! She’ll know what to do.

I called Mom and told her what was going on and asked what I should do. She started laughing. A lot. Now I had a tick in my leg, my cat was still meowing for me and my mother was laughing at me.

“Mom,” I said, “I don’t think I can laugh it out. What’s so funny?” She didn’t answer, but sensing the tension in my voice, she told me to hang on- she’d look it up on line and call me back. It was either that or go to a hospital. “I was about to go to a party,” I told her.

“Oh, there should be lots of people there to help you.” But I didn’t want to drive to a party with a tick in my leg! But then I realized, a good friend of mine who just became a nurse may be there. I’ll call her! No answer. I tried her boyfriend. No answer. I tried another friend who I knew would be there. No answer. Was I alone in the world? I’d been trying to call friends all day and had not spoken to a soul!

When Ra answered, I told him I was so happy he was alive! I told him of my invader and made an odd noise. He told me to calm down, but didn’t realize my odd noise was just for dramatics and not really indicative that I really was freaking out. Although, I really was freaking out. I thought I might pass out, even. (OK, I really have a thing about ticks, if you’ve not noticed by now!)

Calm Ra told me he thought one was supposed to twist it out, counter-clockwise. “My counter-clockwise or the tick’s counter-clockwise?” I wondered. He told me to hold on, he would look it up on his puter.

He told me to use tweezers to pull it out, grasping as close to the body as possible, being careful not to squeeze the bug’s guts and head into my skin. I nearly passed out again. He told me to be strong and that I’d be fine. After telling me to call him after it was done, we hung up.

I had to make like a pretzel to get to where I could reach the bugger with the tweezers. It took a few tries; I nearly passed out, yet again. And it was now that I realized the tick was still very much alive, as it started waving all of its legs around, not very happy to be plucked from such a juicy morsel! I finally got it out and didn’t see anything left in my leg, like its head. I got a magnifying glass out and took a closer look at it and it looked as if I got it all.

I called Mom back, it’d been over ten minutes. “I could be dead now, you know; you haven’t called back!” She had tried, but the phone was busy, I guess while I was trying to call others. She told me the same thing Ra had, and it was as if she was using the same web site. I told her I had already done it and seemed successful. She said I should I keep it, in case they needed to test it for Lyme disease. But I’d already washed it down the sink. “Well, if you get redness or swelling or feel feverish or achy, like with a flu, you need to see a doctor.

I asked why she had laughed before. She said she thought it was embarrassing. To get a tick? I asked. “Well…” she replied. Oh, Mom! “You live in the mountains, don’t you get ticks?” “No,” she replied. They’d just been lucky enough to never get them.

“Put some alcohol on the bite area to disinfect it,” she told me. A check in the cabinet showed there to be none. “I think I threw out the bottle when I moved a few months ago. I’d not used it in over a year, so it got trashed.” She asked if I had any vodka. “Well, of course, I do!” Great idea.

I went to the kitchen, followed by Adelie, grabbed a shot glass and poured a shot of vodka into it. Adelie started up again with the agitated meowing, so I bent over to give him some loves. Thinking again about the tick sticking out of my leg made me shudder. I stood back up and seeing a shot of vodka sitting on the counter, I drank it. Another shudder, and then the realization that the shot wasn’t for consuming, but for the bite. I poured another shot and took care of the bite wound.

As I finished getting ready for my party, which I now almost didn’t want to go to (oh, the trauma!), I texted my other best friend, Blossom. He freaked out, thinking I got it from last weekend when we had been camping, and wondered if he had one. I had to reassure him I got it from today and that he’d know by now if he had one. Then I was out the door.

En route, I got a text from Ra asking if I was still alive. I’d forgotten to call him back. I couldn’t text him back while in the car, so when I arrived at the party, I replied via text that I had fainted and had only now woken up. Within the minute, the phone rang with Ra calling to see if I was kidding or not.

I was kidding, but I was still traumatized. Each little itch or odd feeling was another tick. And I could still feel the last one in me. When I closed my eyes, I could see the tick with its head buried in my leg. I shuddered and grabbed the glass of wine Wonderboy handed to me and tried to lose myself in the party.

I was encouraged not to give up on hikes due to this event. I assured them I was not done hiking, but had just learned how necessary it is to use Off. That, and, when enjoying the view and the birds and the mice, to keep an eye on the ticks! Shudder!

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This is my London layover

Photo by Penguin Scott 2005

Oct 14, 2008

Part One

It’s 330pm in London. I awoke after a 4hour nap. I ate a sandwich, cookies and drank some milk. I read the USA Today, even though it was several days old. It was still news to me. Now I sit in my tiny name-brand hotel room looking out the window. I’ve always heard how small rooms are in Japan, but I’ve never had a room in Japan as small as this in London.

Gray clouds float by, as usual for this town it seems. They float by not entirely lazily, however. Like the people on the sidewalks below them, they seem to have their agendas and so move at an appropriate pace for having such.

My view is of a mostly residential area. While no skyscrapers by any means, a few multi-storied buildings are also in view. But mostly apartment buildings are what I see from my 18th floor hotel room.

They are constructed of brick and look as if they’ve been here for quite some time. The bricks are dark and look wet, like it’s been raining. But the streets are dry and I see no puddles on roofs or sidewalks. Their roofs are littered with small and medium disks used to gather satellite images for the TVs inside.

Not many have balconies. Most that I can see are vacant. Others store chairs or display plant life. Quite a few, again…satellite dishes. Some people are using their balconies to hang laundry to dry.

Along the street below is a wide sidewalk. It’s not over run with people, but looks about on par for a Tuesday afternoon. Along the sidewalk and under the apartments are stores- most of which have signs in both English and Arabic as a clear indication of the part of town I’m in. There is a post office, a fabric store, an electronics store, a few salons a fish market, KFC and a Dominos Pizza.

Red double-decker busses dominate the street. It reminds of seeing taxi cabs in Manhattan. The Brits love their small cars; Citroens, Smart Cars and Mini Coopers are numerous. Oh, and motor bikes; most with the little trunks sitting high just behind their driver, all of whom wear full helmets, unlike their counterparts in America who seem to go for style and comfort over safety.

The clouds move from left to right. Right now they are not so much clouds as one large, gray mass. And here I sit, in London, nothing to do, no plans, done it all before, it seems. Here I sit- watching.

Part Two

The sharp woman who was the purser on my flight from San Francisco had announced a happy hour in her room to begin at 4pm. She announced her room to us upon check-in and that she was going to provide the beer. I like happy hours. I like socializing. I like beer and I had no other plans. London is expensive and I am cheap. OK, maybe not cheap, so let’s stick with thrifty. At ten minutes to 4 I started getting dressed to head out, then realized I was about to make a social faux pas by showing up on time. I sat down and left my room at 415.

I walked into Cindy’s room and was offered a beer from the bathroom sink, full of ice and beer. Two pilots, the captain and the first officer and one flight attendant were already in the room.

Cindy had a better view of London than I had. From her room on the 15th floor, I could see the London Eye (Europe’s largest Ferris wheel), the ‘Gherkin’ building (unofficially named for its similar shape to a pickle) and the tower of Big Ben (one can’t actually ‘see’ Big Ben, as that is the name of the bell within the tower and not the tower itself; a bit of knowledge I picked up on a previous trip). I took a seat near the window knowing that during the lulls of conversation that tend to come with a smaller group, that I could simply turn to take in the views for a moment or two.

However, over the next 90 minutes or so, I found the conversations appealing and the people behind them charming. The room was filled with much laughter and there were numerous times I thought hotel security surely would come knocking any minute. They never did. And even though the company was so engaging, I did tend to turn from time to time to look at the view behind me. And every time I did so, a few others followed my lead as if to see what it was, exactly, that I was looking at, maybe not fully aware that it was merely the whole view in general that attracted me.

By 7 we were all pretty hungry and started to discuss dinner options. Indian food had been thrown out as a possibility and I know from past trips to London that the Indian food here is pretty darned good. Someone threw out fish and Elbert, the flight attendant who had worked in business class with me, suggested a place a few blocks away that he likes to go to for chicken. His suggestion beat out the others, mostly on the construct that we could bring it back to the room to continue drinking. This seemed popular with the pilots, as well as with Cindy, who wanted to make sure she didn’t have leftover beer to deal with. After all, this was a lightly attended happy hour; lighter than most.

Upon exiting the hotel I found myself not as sure of my footing as normal. Cindy had done a good job of passing out beer up in the room. And the weather had turned slightly more foul than before, as the air was now full of a wet mist, which helped us step up our pace a bit.

The chicken place was visible from my room, only I had not noticed it. One big step up into a small restaurant with 4 or 5 small tables, a wall filled with a large menu board and photos of various dishes and a long food table, under the glass of which were dishes mostly of middle eastern and Indian flair. Hummus, kibbeh, lamb, kebabs, fried pies with curries and vegetables, all kept warm under warming lamps and over water tables. In back, along the wall were 2 rotisseries, one with lamb and one with chicken for gyros. The whole place was eerily lit by florescent light.

Elbert ordered for us, a small, whole chicken for each of us. It came with fries and the guys preparing the food for us included a green salad, placed in a small plastic bag. I’d never had salad given to me in a bag!

The prices were great, I’m sure I’ll be back on future trips, knowing how expensive it is in London. (On the bus ride to the hotel, I noted a KFC with a sign for a chicken sandwich that was 4 pounds and a half, which would convert to about eight US dollars.)

We dined in the hotel lobby where, as we finished eating, I noticed a sign stating outside food was not allowed to be consumed. Sure enough, 2 minutes later a manager asked us to leave. Perfect timing! We gathered our trash and resumed as before in the room on the 15th floor and continued to enjoy one another’s company. And beer.

On our food outing we ran into 2 other flight attendants from our flight and they had now joined us, adding new life and fodder for conversing. Being that Cindy’s room, albeit with the better view, was of the same size as mine, it was fun being a bit cramped. Three sat on the bed, two on the floor, the captain in the chair next to the desk and I sat on a make-shift seat of the suitcase stand with pillows so I wouldn’t fall through the straps.

At 1030 we dispersed. Most of my flying partners had earlier flights than I had and they wanted to get to sleep. Mine wasn’t until 4pm the next day, so my plan was to stay up a bit longer and sleep in.

Part Three

The plan was to stay up until 2am, sleep until 10, check out and catch my ride to the airport. It failed at 630am when I awoke to a door slamming in the hallway. More doors followed and continued for the rest of the morning. I couldn’t fall asleep again, as much as I wanted to and as tired as I was. I turned on the TV and hoped maybe it would lull me back to sleep. I gave up at 8 and started to pack and take a look outside. The weather was the same as when I went to bed, dreary. People now walked under the safety of their umbrellas. Those without sort of jogged hurriedly along.

The night before, I’d gone to a local grocery and bought scones and clotted cream. It’s just not a London trip without scones and clotted cream. I’m quite happy they don’t have these delicacies in the states as I would have to eat them constantly. Oh, so creamy, and with a bit of strawberry jam…decadence to be sure!

I ate my breakfast and watched the news, taking note that the Brits seemed much attuned to the presidential elections in the US. Only two other news items garnered more attention; the economic conditions and a meeting about them taking place in Brussels, and the split of Guy Ritchie from Madonna.

When the time finally came to head downstairs, I began feeling quite tired and relished the thought of a nap on the hour-long ride back to Heathrow Airport. But I knew that would be hard for me. I enjoy looking out the windows too much. I never sleep on the bus rides to and from the airport, even after the long 15-hour flight to Sydney. I don’t travel all that way to just sleep on the bus and not take in the local culture, of which there is a lot to take in on a journey to and from the airport.

A van arrived. I was on my own, as the other girl going back with me was at another hotel. The driver informed me the flight was an hour delayed. I was lucky that they allowed me to go back to my room. I got a 20 minute nap in, which did a world of good.

When I again attempted to depart my hotel I was happy to know there were 2 other flight attendants with me. The LHR airport is very confusing and my company’s offices were now in a new area. So I had absolutely no idea where to go once I arrived. To this day I still have none.

The LHR airport is like entering a twilight zone. It went something like this.

Because I had liquids over the allowed limit and England is one of the few places in the world where flight attendants can’t take them through security, I had to check one of my bags. Thank goodness the other girl I was with did so as well. Again, I had no idea where to go next.

We checked our bags at the front podium and went around the corner. It took a few tries for her to find the hidden door, go left and then down the ramp, go right, across the hall, down a corridor, up a ramp, pass another security check point. Then take a right, go down a bit and a left. We entered a room now for security screening. Put the bags on the conveyer, pass the magnometer, turn right, then left, down a hall and through some doors. Never were there windows or signs directing us where to go. God pity those who know not the way!

We were now in a huge terminal full of shops and seats and tons of people. We now had to go from one end of this large room to the other. I was hungry, but not a one of these shops sold food. Had I wanted cologne, tobacco, alcohol, sunglasses, watches or chocolate, I would have been in paradise. I wanted a hamburger. There must be a separate maze to take one to the food.

Turn right, down another hall, take a moving sidewalk, then another, another left and here, on the left, were our offices. Not knowing the code to get in we knocked. I looked through the window and the woman behind the desk about 10 yards back held up a sign with large red numbers. It was the code to get in the door. I was glad no one was behind us to now know the code. I punched it in and our journey through London’s Heathrow twilight zone Airport was done.

If you offered me $10,000 to do it again on my own, I don’t know that I could.

The London based crew I was about to fly home with were more senior and older than the crew I had flown in with 2 days before (by senior, I mean company seniority). But they were nice and the new purser led a thorough briefing. After the briefing, I mentioned that I’d not eaten since 8am and was hungry. The flight was now an additional hour behind. It was almost 6. We were told there was a sandwich shop at the gate. I went with Denise, who flew in with me and who had joined the last of our happy hour the night before.

The walk to the gate was short. We showed our ID to another security person and were allowed into the gate area. I finally settled on an egg sandwich for just over 2 pounds, or about $4. Denise told me it would need mayo, as she had that the last time she was in London. I asked the girl at the register for some mayo and was told, “Oh, we don’t do that here.” It was almost like I’d asked for a dance, the way she said it. No mayonnaise, no sandwich. I put it back.

In my hunger I now got upset with London. Silly little London, with their small cars and their driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. It’s dreary, crowded, small, old; the airport is a cluster fuck, they pronounce their military as ‘millitree’, can’t pronounce aluminum correctly, put things in the boot of their car and now they don’t have mayo for a freakin’ egg sandwich! I have to check my bags because I carry water and more than 3 ounces of other various gels and liquids that the US allows me to carry. And when I arrive home I will have to wait 10 minutes for my bag to arrive with the other passenger’s.

I don’t like London layovers. It’s the reason why, in the past, when I’ve had the chance to pick up a trip going overseas, I’ll overlook these trips in hopes of one to Frankfurt or Japan or even Hawaii, which are considered international with our company.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Britain. I love the people and the country. As soon as I got on the plane, I grabbed a sandwich, meant for the mid-flight snack; we had empty seats, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. The flight went well, I enjoyed the crew and I slept well during my break. I do like London. It’s just not the easiest place to go, especially when one is cheap. OK, maybe not cheap, but thrifty.

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Stop Causing Trouble


Photo by Penguin Scott

OK people, stop getting on my flights and causing trouble. When you get on my flight and cause trouble, it just means I have to fill out paperwork. Paperwork is in triplicate and if you get on my flight and cause trouble when I’m not at my home base, I have to make a copy of my report and send it to the base where we landed just after you caused the trouble.

But before there is paperwork, there is calling the captain to advise him that you are causing trouble. After we land I have to describe the trouble you caused to a police officer and a supervisor. Sometimes the two of them are not together when one or the other asks me to describe the trouble you caused on my flight. This means I have to repeat myself- and I hate repeating myself.

After I’ve described the trouble you caused to the police and local supervisor, (who then relay the trouble you caused to the FBI) chances are, the other flight attendants then also want to hear my version of the trouble you caused on our flight.

Really, all I want to do is serve you a drink. If there is food to serve, I’d love to do that for you, too. If you have questions about planes, airports, air traffic control, my job or penguins, and I’m not too busy serving other passengers, I’d also love to answer anything I can. But when you come onto my flight and start causing trouble, I get upset.

On my flight to Denver, after we’d gone through the cabin preparing for landing, my flying partner comes up to me in the first class galley and tells me a passenger just grabbed her and was causing trouble when asked to stow her belongings for landing. My flying partner grabbed my arm to show me what it was like. It hurt. I told her to let go and wanted to hit her back. I asked if I needed to go talk to her and was told yes, I did. Since I was the purser, or the head flight attendant on this trip, I was obligated.

I was told she had alcohol on her breath, although when I got to her seat, I couldn’t tell. The woman in 12C was a nicely-dressed woman in her 50s. Her outfit indicated that she had taste. Her jewelry indicated she was not hurting in our troubled economy- after all, she had my annual salary on her right hand alone.

I asked her a few question and she seemed a bit sluggish in answering; not that she slurred her speech, but it took a moment for her to process my questions and come up with an answer. She indicated that my flying partner had been badgering her. The couple seated next to her looked over to me as if to say, “Nuh-uh!” I told her that it seemed unlikely that the person in question had been badgering her, being that she had been working in first class with me, and spent very little time, if any, in economy.

She told me she lives in three different homes and flies my airline often, commuting from one to the another. She said this was the worst treatment she has ever had. I thanked her for her continued business but let her know that someone would need to speak to her when we landed. “Oh, I can’t wait when we land, my husband is meeting me and I have another flight to catch.” “Well, unfortunately, a chain of events has already been triggered, so you will be detained a bit when we land,” I shot back. And if this was the worst treatment she’s ever had at our airline, she is lucky to have been treated so well for so long!

At this point, a glance out the window showed that the ground was ever so close. I excused myself to return to the first class galley so I could finish putting things away and then took my jump seat for landing.

Sure enough, upon landing, we found four police officers and two supervisors waiting. The lady stayed in her seat during deplaning, while my flying partner first spoke to the authorities, then it was my turn. By the time I’d finished, the last passenger stepped off the plane and a young officer went to her seat to speak to her.

Our flight was delayed and we had arrived a little late, so they took her off the plane. Another supervisor asked if we were OK to continue flying, like maybe we were too phased to continue the trip. Yes, we were just fine. Could we now board the plane? Yes, let’s please, since we were now 30 minutes behind schedule and we had to first stop in Chicago before eventually arriving in Philadelphia for our layover.

She had to go and cause trouble. Now I have to go and write up my report. In triplicate!

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ABOUT THIS BLOGSPOT

Back in the early nineties I had an injury that kept me from full time work for two years. During that time I kept telling myself that I wanted to start writing a book. I had a basic topic, short story horror, and even a few story ideas. But I was young and foolish and wasted my time watching the Munsters and partying with my roommate and his buddies.

When I started working again I wished I hadn’t wasted so much time. I spent the next ten years thinking about writing, coming up with new stories to tell, developing characters and plots. But I was working too hard to have the energy or patience to sit down and write.

Then I got a job with a lot of time off. “Finally, I can start to write,” I thought. And I did. However, I had new fodder to write about now. Oh, I fully intended to start writing my fiction, but my life was so much fun now. You see, I had gotten a job as a flight attendant. It wasn’t what I set out to do, but the job had fallen in my lap, and I was looking to travel anyway. So I thought, “Why not?”

I was coming back from trips all over the world and telling my family and friends about it. They kept asking for more. My uncle in New Jersey, told me that I should keep a good journal of my travels, something to look back on or share with my children. But I thought, well, if I’m going to write about all this, why not do so to share with the world. And my non-fiction was born.

I started writing this book two years ago. It shouldn’t be taking me this long but I just finished editing my 23 chapters (299 pages as of this post) and I’m now ready to share it with publishers. It’s been a blast writing it and has been the single biggest project I’ve ever taken on. I’ve had jobs last shorter than the time I’ve spent on this.

I really hope you like it. Please let me know at brogott101@aol.com. I often wonder if what I am writing is really interesting enough for people to want to read it. Is it easy to follow along? Am I writing at a comfortable reading level for the audience? Am I wasting my time?

I’m only including bits from ten of the chapters. They don’t tell the whole story, but hopefully they show my fledgeling writing abilities. Hopefully those abilities are good enough for a publisher to share in my dream of showing the world what my life has been like for just over a year of it. Hopefully you will read these posts and yearn to read more, champion my getting the book published, and rushing out to buy it, along with your friends and family.

So on to the book, I’ll start with part of chapter one. I hope you enjoy it.

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CHAPTER 1 DEATH OF A HARLEY MAN

All good books start at the begining. While the begining of this chapter in my life started as a passion borne into the young ideals of a child, the actual story began with a job interview that took me to Chicago. It was a trial, not just an interview. It was the sort of event that I wrote about, long before I ever thought of turning my writing into a book. While I’m not going to post the part about the interview here, I thought I’d start my posts by giving you a history lesson of the beginnings of my passion.

The end of a long day had finally arrived. I was glad. I was tired. One of my employees had been working a little late and had just said good night before slipping out the back door, leaving me alone in the building. The distraction from what I had been working on was a welcome one. My desk was a mess, full of advertising material and files of work, financial statements and reports. I sat for a moment looking over it all and then swiveled my chair to face the back wall, where a model of a Boeing 737 sat on a bookshelf. It seemed out of place amongst the binders and books. But I loved to look at it.

I studied the plane and its lines, making it so aerodynamic. I looked at the miniature windows of the cockpit and could envision the white-shirted captain sitting in his seat flying it. I smiled and felt calm. I had just come off a plane the previous day, ending a three-day travel ordeal that was all still very fresh in my mind.

Needing a break, I rose from my chair and walked out of my office and onto the showroom floor. The smell of rubber mixed with gasoline and leather. The room was dark except for a few florescent safety lights that stayed on all the time. The sun had long set and through the front windows I could see a few cars go by, creating a show of white and red lights. I looked around at the motorcycles parked side by side on the slick floors. I glanced over the walls with mirrors and signs advertising Harley Credit services. To my right was the women’s MotorClothes section, to my left, the men’s. Racks of tee shirts and jeans sat full of merchandise, some of which I had personally ordered from various vendors. On the walls hung leather jackets, vests and pants. I walked back towards the office but turned left and walked to the lower half of the store.

I thought about how I had helped tear down the wall that once stood where this step was. I took a step down to the other half of the showroom and remembered the people who had tripped on that step, not realizing that it was there. That was the winter of early 1996 and we’d just opened the new store. People were not yet used to the high walls loaded with shiny merchandise, like motorcycle parts and specially painted fenders and tanks, and were distracted from watching where they were walking. It always gave me a chuckle and no one was ever really hurt. But we finally had to put in a ramp and block off the hazard with boxes of motorcycle oil and racks of clothing.

Along the front of this section was the lounge with windows that looked out onto the parking area and the street. The lounge was where customers could congregate and where the employees took breaks. It was home to the vending machines, a few tables, customer photos and a small kitchenette. When walking from the lounge towards the rear of the store, one passes the display area and then reaches the parts counter. Behind the parts counter wall is the large parts storage area with rows of shelving and a loft above for large parts storage. The walls around the display area were covered with motorcycle parts and high up, out of reach, were more fenders and gas tanks for sale. Neon lighted signs helped customers locate the parts department as they would walk into the front door. They illuminated the area in a strange red glow at night.

I now stood in this display area, with the lounge to my left and the parts counter to my right. I looked at the motorcycle accessories and the collectibles displayed neatly in cases and on the display racks. I stood there looking at everything in the darkness, taking it all in, thinking back on how I had made much of this happen.

This place had become my home and all that I had known for the past five years. I was the general manager of this Harley-Davidson dealership. I had moved here with my father in the late summer of 1995 to help him run this business. I had spent more hours in this store than I had spent at home. I had hired over 95% of the people who worked there. Over the years, I had fired many as well. Much of the inventory was either ordered by me or was signed off by me. It was my advertising and marketing skills that attracted people to shop here and it was my signature on the checks that paid our staff. The hours were long but the pay was good and I was enriched by the personal growth I had experienced over the years.

But I was starting to say goodbye to it all. Most nights I could be found there long after closing, working on marketing ideas or sales events, writing articles for our newsletter or working on reports for headquarters. Now I would often stand in the dimly lit store at night to look over it all, like an artist saying goodbye to his art before it was to be hung on someone’s living room wall.

Travel was in my blood and it was affecting me more and more. The business had switched hands in 1999. My father returned to Texas, but I stayed on to continue to run things. The new owner was mostly absentee, so my business trips almost dried up completely, and I could take it no longer. I had given notice and was searching for a new job. One that would take me all over the world. And it wasn’t until I had gotten home from that long, hard trip, just the night before, when I realized I had found that job. I chuckled to myself as I began to think about how it all started for me; this passion for flying.

I was a small boy, maybe five years old. At that age I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in Borger, a small town supporting a Phillips Petroleum refinery in the Texas panhandle. My grandfather was a company man who would eventually retire from the position of Pipeline Superintendent. Borger was often a smelly place due to the oil refinery at the north edge of town. Coming from Houston, which was so much larger and aroma-free, I always called it “Little Stinky Borger.” My grandmother said the smell was that of money. When we would pass a Phillips gas station, she would tell us to bow our heads. “That’s our bread and butter!” she would say. So she would counter me by calling it “Bigger Better Borger.” It would be a running thing between us for many, many years. Still is today, all though she now lives in Houston.

My mother would take me to the airport for my trips to Borger and would be able to walk on the airplane with me. She would make sure that I had a seat by the window, buckle my seat belt and give me a kiss goodbye. There was always a nice lady behind her smiling. I would look at the wings on her uniform and smile back. The lady would make sure my mom got off the plane before the door would close. I don’t ever remember being upset or scared and I would spend the next ninety minutes looking out the window. I loved to see the other planes, feel the speed as we took off down the runway, and watch the ground drop below until the clouds took their place.

Itsy, (that’s what I call my grandmother), tells a story of going to the airport in Amarillo to pick me up so many years ago. “And here you would come walking off that plane with that ugly, dumb rabbit under one arm…”

She was talking about Buns, my childhood security blanket. Buns was a scraggly green rabbit with long legs and ears. I took him everywhere I went, much to Itsy’s dismay, “But you took to flying on those planes back and forth like it was nothing. You always loved to fly.” Indeed, to me, it was just a normal thing, like getting in the car to go to school.

Years later, my father was living in Chicago with his third wife, Kitty. I would go to visit in the summer and in the evenings we would sit outside on the back patio when my father got home from work. He and Kitty would talk about their day and I would play with toys. They would drink gin and tonic and I would drink cherry flavored sugar water. The heat of the day was lowered to a cool breeze, which we enjoyed sitting in. Overhead flew the planes going to O’Hare International. I would always look up and watch them. Seeing this, my father would look up and name the type of plane, a 727, a DC10, a 747. I remember specifically, seeing the many bright colors of Braniff airplanes. I think they were my favorite.

When I was about nine, Dad and Kitty left Chicago and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They had a place high in the city, near the base of Sandia Mountain. In the back yard my father had built an elaborate vegetable garden with railroad ties to keep in the dirt. At the top, and in the corner of the yard, he built a fort for me to play in on my summer visits. It was two levels high, the top being open with a railing for safety. He also fashioned a flagpole with a pulley so I could raise and lower a flag. From up there, one could see the whole city spread out below, towards the valley. But what caught my eye from up there was the airport. With binoculars I could see the terminal itself and the planes moving around on the tarmac. I would watch them fly overhead until I could see them touch down and taxi to their gate. Then I would watch others as they sped down the runway and lumbered into the air. I tried to watch them until I could no longer make them out in the huge sky.

As would most kids with a fort, I made a Jolly Roger flag for the flagpole, with black cotton for the flag, and white felt for the skull and crossbones. But I also made a second flag. This one was more simple, yet meaningful, with the letters G.A.L.O.P. My father came home from work and I showed him my new flag. When he asked what the letters meant, I told him, “Gibson Aviation Look-Out Point.” I don’t know who was more impressed with my ingenuity. I have no idea of what ever happened to that flag, but I’ve never forgotten it.

So my love for airplanes and for flying had been with me since some of my very first memories. Now I had grown used to making about twelve business trips a year with the Harley business, and then having that number dwindle to only a few. I had amassed a collection of civil airplane models, books and metal signs. And the collection grew as my passion did. I even made quick friends with several customers who were pilots. They would come into the store and I would hit them with all sorts of questions about things I saw at airports, parts of airplanes, how things worked. But I had never once thought seriously of trying to get into aviation for a living.

I left the dark showroom and returned to my desk to get on my computer. The past three days had been so amazing. I wanted to write about it so I would never forget the experience, and so my friends and family, both here in Annapolis, and back in Texas, could read about what I had just gone through.

I began to write an essay on how I had gotten my new job with a major airline. I had no idea that what I was about to write would start something that would occupy my free time for over two years and would eventually turn into this book.

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CHAPTER 2 THE COMPOUND

Training was tough, long and not without stress. There was a lot to learn. Turns out I didn’t just learn how to be a flight attendant. I learned a lot about living in close proximity to others who I normally wouldn’t sit next to. Note, many names in this book have been changed to protect the innocent. Or at least me.

The rest of training was not free from stress. Part of that was due to being surrounded by some of the same people for six weeks. Many of us had not had to share a room with three other people since college. And that was a really long time ago for some of these folks. Things were still a little stressed in our room between Drew and the rest of us, even though I continued to put on a friendly front.

At the end of week four, one of my classmates, Terri, was having her birthday. A group of us decided to head downtown to celebrate with her. We found a few bars to enjoy; when one got boring we would move to another. By the end of the evening we had been to a few bars and were feeling quite comfortable. One of the girls in our group, Aura, had gone to the bar for another drink. Terri followed her and they wound up spending a lot of time at the bar, just the two of them.

When they came back to the table, it was clear that Aura had been crying. Someone else at the table asked what the problem was and she spilled it all.

“Last week in the mockup, Drew made a demeaning sexual comment to me and slapped my ass. He knows I am married and I didn’t do anything to provoke him.” Did she tell anyone about it? “No. He’s got a family. I’ve got a family. I don’t want this to get all blown out of proportion. But I made it quite clear to him that I didn’t appreciate his advances and that if it happened again, I would kick him in the nuts.”

Apparently, Aura was not the only one at the table to feel uncomfortable with my roommate. Others had overheard him making questionable comments and felt a bit uneasy around him. The conversation turned to him for a while but as all conversations do, eventually evolved into other things. I felt badly for Aura but really thought nothing else about it. The night moved on and we eventually made our way back to the compound. My roommates were already asleep when I got back.

The next morning I went down for breakfast in the cafeteria. The room was almost empty but there were a few of my classmates sitting at one table with Drew. I started to pass them by for a table with more room, but was beckoned to join them. I hesitated, but sat down reluctantly, giving into peer pressure. I never did feel much better about Drew since that first impression, and now I felt even more distanced from him.

As soon as I sat down, I realized that everyone was leaning in towards Drew and that his eyes were red. In an instant I knew what was happening. And it would drag the entire class into an abyss for the remainder of our time at the training center.

“Aura is going around telling people that I sexually harassed her and it’s all a lie,” he said. I acted somewhat surprised. I actually was. First of all, I knew she was not going around making that false accusation. Aura was a very attractive woman. Her complexion was flawless, and her body was in perfect condition. She did not need the attention and it was quite clear to us the night before that she had dealt with it and only wanted it to go away. The only reason we knew about it was that we practically drug it out of her at the bar. And she certainly wasn’t lying.

I searched the faces at the table. There was one who was at that bar last night and I knew it was her who told him about it. I’m not going to mention names. I never have to anyone I confided in while I was in training. At this point it’s all water under the bridge and I don’t need any aggravation to come back and haunt me from training.

Drew stewed about it some more and I finally admitted that the subject had come up the night before, but I didn’t believe it was her telling people. He got up and stormed away exclaiming he was going to find her and talk to her right now.

It does nothing but get messier from here. Word got to the supervisor on duty who called the two of them up to the office. They each gave their side of the story and then were told that more would be done on Monday by our supervisor. In the meantime, neither of them was to discuss it with anyone else. I only know all of this because the first thing Drew did was to come to our room and tell me everything that happened in the supervisor’s office. The funny thing was that when he told me her side of the story, as she told it to him, it matched exactly what she had told me at the table in the bar.

What he did next would seal our fate as roommates. He asked if I was near them when the incident occurred in the mock up. I was not. I was in the other mock up on the other side of the room.

“If you get called up tomorrow and questioned, I want you to tell them that you were there and that you never saw it happen. Tell them I wasn’t even seated near her,” he told me.

I was floored. “I can’t do that, Drew. I’m not going to do that and I won’t be brought in the middle of this.” I lied. After he left the room I knocked on Aura’s door and told her what had just happened and that if I got called upstairs, I would let them know as well. This situation was getting serious and I was not going to let Drew manipulate the situation to his favor for something I felt he was, indeed, guilty of.

Drew spent the rest of that day going around telling everyone about what happened and by the time class resumed on Monday, I felt as if half of us were on his side, and the other half was on hers. The tension was noticeable and different fractions were in different corners whispering and looking around like they were guilty of talking about someone. And they were.

At one point in the afternoon I was watching planes approach ORD with my binoculars. I went to the laundry room on the other side of the building, affording me a better view of the planes. But this was also the same side of the building that the pool was on. There were quite a few people out there and I could make out Drew, surrounded by a group of people, some from our class, others were not. I looked at them through the binoculars when Christine entered the room. ‘Oh, shit,’ I thought. ‘She probably thinks I’m some pervert watching the girls at the pool.’ She didn’t say much to me and I decided to return to my room.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Christine knocked and asked to speak to me. I let her in.

“Scott,” she started. “I just wanted to tell you that I am very bothered by what you were doing just now in the laundry room.”

“Christine, I know you think I was watching people at the pool. I did see Drew down there and did look to see whom he was talking to. But the reason I was in there with my binoculars was to watch planes come in to land.”

She seemed to not quite believe me. I pointed to a model airplane sitting on my windowsill and picked up a magazine on airplanes.

“You see, I like to see what kind of plane they are. I’m totally obsessed.”

I could see that she now understood. She smiled and said she was relieved. She was thinking I was a perv. I told her that I was glad she came to see me about it instead of going around thinking that. We still laugh about it today.

The next day, my other roommate, Restie, came to me and told me that things were getting bad. He had come in late Sunday night, after I went to bed. He closed the door quietly and was slinking around the room getting ready for bed, trying not to wake us up. Drew got out of bed and said he needed to talk to him so they went to the spacious closet and turned on the light. And just as he had done with me, he asked him to lie for him about what happened in the mock up. And just as I had done, he told Drew that he would not do that. I let Restie know that the same thing happened to me and thanked him for not going along with it.

I never was called upstairs and no one ever asked me about what happened in the mock up that day. The case was dropped, which angered Aura, but she was glad to have it behind her. She never did want it brought up in the first place. She would be going to a different base and hopefully would not have to see him again. She only hoped her husband would never find out. He was the jealous type and would not take it well; he might even make her quite this job.

Things were a little tense in my room after that. Restie and I became closer and he would often tell me that he didn’t understand why Drew disliked me so much.

“You are always so nice to him, nicer than I am to him,” he would tell me with his thick accent, “even though he treats you so badly. And he’s always talking bad about you to me. I can’t stand it.”

But my being nice to him ended on the first night of our last week, week six. This was the night before we were to leave for our international training flight. One third of the class was to go to Paris, one third to London, and the rest of us to Frankfurt. Being of German heritage, this was exciting news to me. I’d never been anywhere that required me to have a passport before, so this trip was huge.

As usual, we would be paired up and would stay in a hotel with a roommate. Mine would be Drew, of course. That was just my luck. My flying partner was a girl from the other half of the class, Sarah. Everyone was very excited about going overseas the next day. All of our flights were very early in the morning. The three of us were getting ready for bed after having packed our suitcases. Drew was in bed when the phone rang. It was a friend of Restie’s from California, two time zones back. They spoke briefly and hung up.

The phone rang again and it was another call for Restie. He told the person at the other end that he was going to leave the room and call him right back. Very nice thing to do since the lights were out and we were trying to get some sleep. A short while later he returned and got in bed. The phone rang a third time. It was Sarah calling me to find out what time I was going to be in the lobby for our taxi to the airport. I gave her the information, hung the phone up and walked back over to my bed.

Drew rolled over and took the phone off the hook. At first I thought I would ignore it, but then I decided I couldn’t handle the phone being off the hook. What if someone calls? What if there is an emergency? What if his daughter was in an accident? He assured me that wouldn’t happen, that they would call on his cell phone.

“You’re not the only one in this room and I don’t think Restie wants the phone off the hook either,” I told him.

Restie didn’t say a thing. I went back to his side of the room, where the phone was, and put the hand piece back on the cradle. He tried to take it off again as I walked back to bed, so I placed the phone on the floor, out of his reach.

His reach was better than I thought and I didn’t hear him take it off again. I settled into bed and after a minute the phone started to beep obnoxiously, telling us it was off the cradle.

“Well that was a smart thing to do,” I said crossly as I got up once more to fix the problem. This time I moved the phone further away from Drew’s reach.

“Now leave the flipping phone alone.” Except I’m pretty sure I used a stronger word than flipping, but it also started with the letter F.

I got back in bed and there was silence. It lasted about three minutes. Drew started moving around. He put his leg on and got dressed and left, slamming the door behind him.

Across the room, the light went on and Restie was sitting up. “Oh, my goodness!” he said. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know. He’s just being an ass.”

“I know he is. I was so afraid for you. I thought he was going to get up and attack you! I thought he would hit you with his leg.” Restie’s amazement at what was happening was prominent in his voice. And his wry humor was timeless. “I don’t know why he has to be so rude. There are other people in here besides him.”

I simply agreed, still not sure what had set him off that way.

After about twenty minutes Drew slipped quietly back into the room and we all managed to fall asleep without hitting one another.

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CHAPTER 5 PARADE OF HUMANITY

Much of my job with the airline is watching people, a hobby I enjoy. And every day there are more and more people to watch. It made me wonder on a layover in New York about the masses of people and what will happen to our planet as they continue to procreate. This post is setting the chapter up by going over some ancient history.

I was so fortunate to know Tonya and that she allowed me to stay with her in Livermore while I was getting settled in. At the same time I met her all those years ago, I also met a girl named Sophie. I actually met her at Tonya’s apartment in Dallas. She was sitting in a large chair that had been placed prominently in the room. It was as if Sophie was holding court, which seemed appropriate, since everyone was raving about having her present at that night’s party. Sophie was the glue that held the group of people together. She was the life of the party. When Tonya moved to California, Sophie and I became best friends and the parties at Tonya’s were soon taking place at my apartment, a few blocks away. We were the king and queen of everyone’s social life.

On the show, South Park, the obese cartoon character of Cartman always rebuts the jeer of his school buddies by saying he is not fat, but big boned. But Sophie really was big boned. She towered over me by at least six inches and could probably beat the shit out of a trucker. She was a large woman, for sure, but also very sweet, until her dark and playful side came out. And I seemed to be what brought it out in her most of the time. She was fair-skinned and red-haired and had a chronically blocked nasal passage that reminded me of Lilly Tomlin’s telephone operator character, with her nasally sounding voice.

The two of us would often go out for dinner and drinks, about the extent of our social life besides the parties at my place. One evening, we were sitting in a booth at a restaurant in discussion of the things that affected our life at the time (small talk). Soon a moment of comfortable silence befell us. In that silence between two friends came a new joy in life. It sprung from the table just behind her. It was the not-so-quiet conversation of a family. We listened in and from that point forward, we delighted in sitting in booths next to people just to hear what was going on in their lives.

Sophie always found humor in the lives of so-called, white trash. She hated blue eye shadow and ‘large hair,’ so when we saw women made up like that they instantly became the topic of her scoffs. In jest, she would often place the name, “Bob,” at the end of someone’s name- Scott-Bob, John-Bob, and Sara-Bob or even Sophie-Joe-Bob. We could entertain ourselves for hours.

One summer we took a road trip to Ohio to visit her brother. It became the “cheese-tour,” as we stopped at all the cheesy tourist traps along the way, like Twitty City, Loretta Lynn’s Kitchen and Opryland. We went so far as to stay in the Memory Lane Inn near Graceland. It had a huge mural of Elvis on the outer wall and was so cheesy; we just had to stay there. They also boasted a 24-hour all Elvis channel on the television. Here, we had found the big cheese.

As we toured Graceland mansion, there was a woman in front of us with large hair and blue eye shadow who claimed to know why the tour couldn’t take us upstairs.

“I know why we can’t go up there, it’s not ‘cause his aunt still lives up there, it’s because HE still lives there!” (Said in a thick southern accent where “still” came out like “steel” and “there” had two syllables!) We made of fun of that for years.

But sitting in that booth in the Greenville Ave. restaurant, I could see right away that Sophie was going to have a field day with this family. They had a heavy “hick” accent, and were talking about what to do with the car in the front yard. I almost thought, surely, they were doing because they thought we were listening to them. Unfortunately, it was for real.

After they left, we had a good time imitating their conversation and improvising on it. As I got a little older this habit turned into more of a fascination with watching the human condition. I often sit for long periods of time at the airport watching travelers and families. I enjoy hearing their stories and when I can’t hear them, I make them up based on what I observe. It’s really quite amusing. It’s taking people watching, which everyone loves, and making it more entertaining than it already is.