Misadventures while flying high
I guess everyone who reads this column probably knows we flew out to California to spend Christmas with our son, daughter-in-law and grandkids who live there. After all, I wrote about the reason we were going in a previous From the Editor’s Notebook column.
I’m sure you are wanting an update. The trip was fine and it was a wonderful time with our family in California.
Oh sure, it rained every day. Sometimes a hard rain, sometimes a mist, and every once in a while it quit for a little while. One of the days we were there the sun came out, but only for about an hour.
Some roads were flooded and there was standing water and mud everywhere.
About 80 miles west of where we were, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, there was eight feet of snow that fell. That’s feet, not inches.
The temperature each day struggled to get to 50, and I think the highest I saw was 54 degrees. Lows were in the 40s.
But, you know, we didn’t go there for the weather. We went to be with family.
The flights out and back were fine – only slight delays due to weather and we were lucky to be on an airline that was not cancelling flights. And no passengers got unruly and got into fights over wearing a mask.
However, I have to admit the flights did have some pretty interesting moments.
For some background, I sort of like flying. I take along a couple of books and sit in my seat and read.
The whole flight. No movies, no sleeping, just reading. It is like heaven to me to get four straight hours of reading time, not to mention another hour or more of reading in the gate area before boarding.
My reading time on this trip was a bit curtailed, however. First, we got to the gate waiting area for our flight out of the Twin Cities to San Francisco about an hour and a half before our flight.
Why so early? Because we saw on the news there were huge, long lines expected at ticket counters and security checkpoints. Our ticket counter had four people in front of us, and at the security check it was two people. Maybe that was because we were there at 4 a.m.
Anyway, as I took out my book to read, the gentleman near us was having some sort of medical emergency.
First an airport EMT and a security officer were assisting him, then three more ambulance EMTs showed up. They all huddled around him and checked him out and after an hour or so, finally took him away.
Next, on the plane, the briefcase I had put under the seat in front of me had become stuck, and I could not figure out how it was stuck.
I was on my knees in the aisle trying to get it unstuck. First one, then two flight attendants also tried to get it unstuck. So that meant all three of us were on our knees trying to figure out how it was stuck, with my wife holding a cell phone flashlight on the situation.
I am sure it was very entertaining to all those passengers sitting around us.
Turns out a strap that holds the emergency lifejacket in place under each seat was stuck in the zipper end piece of my briefcase. The flight attendant cut the strap with a tiny scissors.
Next up, during the flight, a woman a couple of rows ahead of us had a medical emergency and passed out right on the same aisle the flight attendants and I had been kneeling on earlier.
They called for any medical personnel to step forward and one did. They laid the poor woman on the three seats right behind us. The aisle was filled with the flight attendant, EMT person and about 12 of her family members.
On the flight home there were no medical emergencies. The flight left San Francisco about 6 p.m. Christmas Night, and the four hour flight put it into Minneapolis at midnight, what with the two hour time change.
I am pretty sure half of that flight was children returning home from having spent Christmas with grandma.
And, half of the kids were toddlers or babies and they all decided to cry, bawl, scream and have a fit during most of the flight. And, most of them were seated right near us.
Moms and dads were often walking the children up and down the aisle to try and calm them down.
I felt bad for them, but on the other hand it was darn tough to concentrate on reading. Or sleeping.
I know, quit my whining. It could have been so much worse. And you are correct. In our times, flying here and there, we have had much worse things happen.
But still, it would have been nice to get a little more reading time in.
On the other hand, it did give me something to write about to fill this space this week.