Flight to New York City
Vacations begin with planning,
preparing, and packing. By the time that Friday arrived to fly to New York I
had planned out where I would stay, when I would go to Broadway theaters, to a
Mets’ game, on train rides upstate to mix upstate attractions with NYC
attractions, and had even pre-purchased shuttle rides from La Guardia to my
hotel and my hotel to La Guardia for a return flight. I even had paid ten
dollars to take a tour of a rooftop farm in Brooklyn along with flight tickets,
and tickets for two Broadway shows and a Mets’ game. While all that planning
helps to get a lot done when you are on vacation, it does increase my fretting
level on the morning I am to fly out since I don’t want to forget any of those
prepaid tickets or misplace the name and location of a hotel I have already
paid for. Fretting comes natural to me on my vacation morning but in reality I
had a pretty decent plan even if all plans are propositions waiting to see how
providence disposes of the plans. I don’t usually plan extremely early flights.
I like to be relaxed as I get ready to go to the airport. I give myself time to
fix my bacon and eggs, and to put the already packed bags into my car. I made
my final rounds around my house, turned off lights, made sure the stove and a
George Foreman Grill and the air conditioner were all turned off. When
everything seemed in order, headed out to the car and started it. Wow, I had
waited expectantly for this day for months, and it was here. I was going to New
York City which somehow seemed now like my home away from home. I pulled out of
the driveway excited to be going on vacation and yet a little bit reluctant to
leave home. I would feel the same way in reverse when returning for home from
New York City.
Small city airports offer advantages
and disadvantages. I am an older person who doesn’t travel a lot. There was
something reassuring about waiting in line for someone to enter your
information. I go a little reluctantly to the automated kiosk to get my gate
ticket processed before going to the counter to check in a bag. One of the
airline workers sees the older guy looking over the kiosk and since it isn’t
real busy she steps over and offers help. Then I get my bag checked in and am
ready to go through security. I get to the line and discover there is only
person ahead of me and they are about to walk through the body scanner. I am up
next and that is a nice advantage of flying from a smaller city airport. I
always think of how we are often reminded to thank our veterans for their
service. I’ve never noticed a campaign to thank TSA agents for their service. I
try to make sure I express in passing my thank you for their service. I don’t
go overboard because if you are too expressive in your thanks, the TSA agent
might wonder, “okay, what’s this traveler up to?” I express my thanks just
enough to let the person know that I know he or she has a job to do that is
essential in our day and times. I have mixed feelings about this thanking a
veteran movement. Maybe we could simplify things by having a ritual to thank
everyone who offers us a service whether in the public or private sector. I try
to remember to thank the bank teller, department store cashier, waiter at the
restaurant, or the laborer working along a street when I have to walk around
them. Maybe we only thank God as much as we thank the laborer or the server. I
am through security and it was really a breeze. I head for a shop to get a
latte. That is when I realized that I left my sunglasses in my car when parking
it in the airport parking lot. I hadn’t worn them while driving, so never
thought about them being in the glove box. I had meant to take them with me to
New York City. Not a problem. I buy a latte and a pair of sunglasses and make
my way to the gate where I read until it is time to board, and then send a text
to a friend to say I am getting ready to board the plane in Tulsa.
When I was a child, you could wait
at the gates for someone coming in on a flight, or wait at the gate until
someone you were dropping off at the airport was boarding a plane. All that
changed after 9/11. There remains within me, a little boy’s memories of going
with his parents to wait at the airport on a neighbor coming home from visiting
his brother in Raleigh/Durham or of dropping off my brother about to ship out
in his service in the Navy. The little boy within me still gets excited to hear
he is going to O’Hare. O’Hare was the airport he got to visit as a little
child. He still remembers how everyone dressed up to go the airport in those
days. The little boy still remembers businessmen wearing suits and quite often
hats, older women wearing proper dresses and their nicest ear rings, younger
women wearing short skirts and long boots with flowing long hair; while
travelers from the Orient, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Latin America wore
the style of their home cultures. I suppose his memory has forgotten some
things and embellished other things, but at the very mention of O’Hare his
imagination fills him with excitement.
The flight to Chicago was
non-eventful until we neared the airport. An announcement was made that while
most of Chicago was experiencing a sunny day, a thunderstorm had popped up over
the airport. The announcement said the crew hoped to have us landed after a 20
minute or so delay. The delay wasn’t all bad. We circled around Chicago, got a
wonderful view of Lake Michigan, the loop, the city’s skyline and the area
between Lake Michigan and O’Hare International Airport. The crew had been right
about a twenty minute delay. I wondered if it would make it difficult for me to
get to my next gate to fly to New York. After we landed I discovered the flight
to New York would be using the same exact gate I had come through when I
arrived in Chicago. We would board in about thirty minutes. I quickly did what
I had to do, got a quarter pound cheeseburger, and a Sprite and returned to
begin the flight to La Guardia.
I made the way to my aisle seat. I
don’t remember if the lady who sat next to the window was already there or not.
I think she was. If I recall she seemed busy so I just sat down in my aisle
seat and did not bother her. There was an open seat between us and it remained
open the entire flight which set well with me because it would mean that we had
a little extra room to spread our arms and feet. In the last year or two I have
begun to learn the about the term of manspreading and how it is a part of good
modern etiquette to resist that seemingly male tendency to take over arm rests
put our knees over into someone else’s space. We often do it without thinking.
But it makes sense in cramped quarters to learn to scrunch your width down to
the space allotted for you and to not appropriate someone else’s traveling
space. With an open seat between us, the need to scrunch was happily
eliminated.
The lady next to the window and I
didn’t say a word to one another until we neared New York City. At that time as
we were in the gradual descent coming towards La Guardia, clouds seemed as if
they were simply suspended in air just outside of the plane’s windows. I was
looking at the scene through a window in front of the lady next to the windows,
and she was looking at the scene to a window at her side. I tried to get a
picture of the sight as the clouds were sort of beautifully arranged with
patches of clear sky beneath us where we could see to the ground. Then
something kind of wonderful happened. The lady noticed I was trying to get a
photograph and mentioned that it must be hard to get a photograph sitting where
I was sitting. I admitted that was so. Inside I was kind of wondering if maybe
I should have gotten a window seat. The thing is, I don’t like bothering people
when having to get to stretch on the plane. Then the lady offered me a gesture
of kindness that I will never forget. She told me she had gotten a couple of
nice photographs of the clouds. She mentioned that she travelled the route
fairly regularly as her job kept her in both New York and Chicago. She
described this as one of the best views she had ever had coming into New York.
So I gave her my cell phone’s number and she promised to send me two
photographs of the clouds when we landed. Then as we came closer to La Guardia
she said the day offered a wonderful view of the city and she would send a
photograph of that as well. So she is the reason I can present the following
photographs of our approach into New York City.
Clouds suspended near our
window like puffs of air and the earth beneath us
An additional photograph of
the clouds greeting us near New York City
The scene shown in her final photograph
could be mistaken for a renowned artist’s painting set on canvas. One can see Flushing
Park and Citi Field, the stream separating Queens from Brooklyn, and the East
River dividing Long Island from Manhattan. The tall buildings of Manhattan’s
Midtown and Downtown regions appear as bookends with two separate clusters of
tall buildings and a middle space between them. The middle region doesn’t
support skyscrapers, but here it looks like a painter did this to create a
semblance of symmetry. The clouds reflecting bright sunlight and the slight
haze over the city seem like they could only be imagined coming together on a
single day but it was a scene prepared by one who creates days and nights,
presented to me by the kindness of a person who had never before met me.
It was the conclusion of a travel
day. I would have a light dinner, get settled in, and on the morrow would begin
my sightseeing and exploration of the city in earnest. Three photographs will forever remind
me of the beauty of kindness that we can offer to the stranger in our midst.
