Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2008 > April > 18 > Entry
Airport 2008
As you read this, I’m probably hiking Colorado’s Front Range somewhere between Denver and Pueblo. Don’t get too excited: Easy to intermediate ratings, nothing remotely advanced. I’m no Pam LeBlanc. I roam the world with a bum ticker, remember, and despite Austin’s soaring 500-foot elevations, I’m a flatlander by comparison.
Visiting friend Rob Kendrick (the Renaissance comparative literature professor, not the Renaissance musicologist by the same name, though both are associated with the University of Chicago) regularly in Colorado Springs as meant repeated flights routed through Bush Intercontinental via ABIA. Flying is, to some extent, a social experience. So, in advance, some Out & About readers kindly shared their short travel socializing stories, which we offer, lightly edited.
Mical Trejo: “On a flight I sat next to a very large man who told me he worked for Slim-Fast. I laughed hard and remarked at how cool it was that he found humor in his size. He wasn’t joking. He’s a plant engineer with the company.”
Audry Coulthurst: “I went to high school in Oregon with a guy named Peter, and the last time I saw him was in the airport going the opposite way on an escalator. We smiled and waved in recognition, exchanging only the words we were allowed in the 30 seconds it took to pass one another. I’ll always remember him, not because we knew each other well, but because we had the same birthday and happened to have that random meeting in San Francisco.”
Sunny Sweeney: “I met Tanya Tucker in the Nashville airport bathroom. We were also wearing the same hat. She offered to watch my cart with my luggage, but like a bull in a china cabinet, I tried to take stuff with me into stall. I eventually took her up on the offer.”
Douglas Plummer: “I was in Orlando Airport waiting for a connection back to Austin and thought that I would call a friend who lived in Orlando, since I was thinking about him. I called him on his cell phone and mentioned I was in the airport wanting to catch up. Turns out he was two gates away. We had a fun lunch together at the McDonalds at the airport before we each headed out.”
Robyn Ross: “While changing planes in DFW one night, I met 78-year-old Jesuit priest Tom Williams and helped him make a connection between Seattle and his new assignment in Belize. As we moved slowly toward his gate, we discovered a mutual interest in writing, and he mentioned that he’d once written a book that he could share with me ‘some day.’ Five months later, when the memory of that meeting had faded, the postman brought a package from Punta Gorda containing what has become one of my favorite short story collections.”
Matthew Carroll: “After a long night out I missed my flight to Madrid from Krakow, I had time to kill so I fell asleep in the cold warehouse for domestic-only trips because I’d have to make a stop to get on the next plane. A Ukrainian girl woke me to ask if I could help her get a chocolate bar from the vending machine. I did. When we landed in Warsaw, her flight going to Kiev, and mine on to Spain we realized that we both had hours to kill. I bought the coffee and it ended with a kiss.”
Vada Dillawn: “Most memorable? When Quentin Tarantino was on my flight. A stewardess gushed that she was a huge fan and he should make a film about air stewards. He politely said, ‘I did — it was called “Jackie Brown”’ … Oh everybody felt for her the whole flight.”
Carl McQuery: I was flying out to see my parents and ahead of me in line, I spotted a familiar, towering pillar of gorgeous white hair looking, in the airport lights, like a spun-sugar confection. I snuck up behind, dodging the cadre of assistants and tapped her on the shoulder. Ann Richards wheeled around flashing that gajillion dollar smile at me and said, ‘Carl, honey, are you going up to see your momma?’
Phillip Ramati: I was in the Philly airport visiting my folks, standing on line at the ticket counter. I see a guy also in line who looks exactly like our high school valedictorian. ‘Doesn’t that look like Hartford?’ I say to my mom. ‘Not really,’ she said. Two seconds later, the guy catches me looking at him. ‘Phil?’ he said. Small world.”
Vicki Rowe: “Thirteen years later and 1,400 miles from our first date in Minnesota, I bumped into my first love in the Austin airport. We embraced and he said, “I’m not married”, to which I replied, “I’m not either.” He handed me his business card; I gave (Jeff Rowe) my checking deposit slip, and love moved us to Austin.”
Gary Powell: “I watched three generations from what seemed like two families waiting anxiously for someone very important. A tall, intact, American soldier in battle fatigues exited the jetway into the terminal to screams of exultation, now voiced from the relief of finally seeing and holding each other. I found myself also full of tears watching strangers; feeling and knowing from my own history, their long-awaited release from the worst of fears.”
Photo of Austin-Bergstrom Airport by Ricardo B. Brazziell.
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