Friday, November 30, 2007
Home for the Holidays
Another flight, another descent into hell. This time my little family made the utterly foolish decision to fly back East for the holidays. Visions of a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving danced in our heads as we packed our bags. Would my kindly uncle drink a wee bit too much and then fall asleep splayed across the couch? Would some aunt make some dish that was utterly horrific, but necessary to ingest for the good of family relations? Would a family member or two or three decide that this was the perfect time to announce some grievance with another family member from the time Jimmy Carter was President? Would sleeping in my old bedroom reduce me to teenage angst? All of these questions, though, would have to wait until we left South Bend.
Knowing what would await us at the airport, we prepared and we prepared well: rations to last us if by some little chance there might be a lengthy delay; reading material galore; an extra supply of goodies and toy trucks to placate the little one. We even arrived an hour and half before our flight. And all to no avail. You see, the gods and/or the airline companies take particular delight in messing with the best-laid plans. The kindly agent told us that the flight out of South Bend was over-booked and that for some strange reason we didn’t have seats on the flight anyway. We slink away from the agent’s desk and decide to hope for the best. Fools!
We did find great rocking chairs that overlooked the fog-draped runway. These comfy seats allowed us to plow through our rations with minimal impulse control. After three plus hours of rocking away and looking into the fog I faced up to the fact that there would be peace in the Middle East before we could get out of South Bend. Another kindly agent took pity on our predicament and switched our tickets from South Bend to a flight from O’Hare, otherwise known as O’Hell. We ran like mad, caught the bus, and spent the next three and half hours driving every back route known only to the bus company. We finally made it to O’Hare only to learn that our little boy has been selected for an extensive screening. Two security people ask him if he has any identification on him. My boy says that he has lots of trucks in his Thomas the Toy Train backpack. This exchange leads me to the conclusion that we have truly become a land of fearful idiots.
We finally board the flight and then get to spend another hour or so waiting on the tarmac. Would you believe that our seats were comfy, that food and drink were plentiful and divine, the in-flight entertainment great, and the bathrooms all sparkly and clean? Or, that our airplane resembled the buses that take the unlucky ones to Abu Graib? Come on, take a guess. The one bright spot was that I found the current issue of Vanity Fair in my seat pocket. This allowed me to look at beautiful people discussing their beautiful lives. I decided that they are all laughing at me, such is my delirium. This brief moment of beauty mingled with paranoia was interrupted by the passenger in front of me--a five foot woman, I might add--who suddenly needed to recline her seat back into my lap, thus preventing me from reading about more beautiful people. Now, I know that if I were to, say, accidently end her life right then and there by dropping the magazine at a high velocity on her head, no jury of my peers would convict me. But I decided not to do so. Why? Because headlines around the world would scream, “Man kills woman with Vanity Fair” and this would only give that horrible magazine more publicity.
We eventually arrive in wonderful Newark, New Jersey, and get to witness professional grade hand-to-hand combat at the luggage carousel. Listen up, tv executives: this would be a reality show everyone would watch. We finally arrive at my folks’ home early the next day, but just in time to hear a recrimination or two already in full swing by other family members. Home sweet home!
I am happy to note that the rest of our trip went just fine. The meal was good and most family members behaved. Our trip back to sweet South Bend went pretty smoothly too. Now I just need some time to recover from our brief vacation.
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A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
Jonathan Nashel -- Home for the Holidays / More essays by Jonathan
Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette
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About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
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Recent pieces
Making Up on the South Shore -- As we’re approaching the Beverly Shores station I glance over and see the woman looking into a pocket mirror. Yes, you’re pretty, sister. Don’t worry about that. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a big pink tackle box, sets it on her lap and opens it up, revealing a whole assortment of little tubes and jars. She selects one tube, squirts some stuff onto her fingertips and starts rubbing it onto…her face. Whoa! What are you doing? By Jeff Nixa.
Time Travel in Paris -- I had studied maps of Paris and read French literature and the Parisian works of American expatriates like Stein, Hemingway, Baldwin, and Miller. I had fallen in love, of course, with my French teachers in high school and college. My prior romance with the language, art, stories, and landmarks animated the city. I remember a morning when the sun emerged and lit up the domes and towers across from where my friend and I stood on a right bank quay, and the world itself seemed like a pure gift, a fresh beginning. By Joe Chaney.
Celebrating Magna Charta Day -- Runnymede, the site of the signing of the Magna Charta, loomed right up there in my imagination with Stonehenge: a couple of historical sites that had captured my interest early on. I can still see surly, pimply-faced, bad King John in some old movie being strongly urged, that is coerced, into signing this document where he promised to behave: “The Lion in Winter,” I think. By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
Life on the Default Setting -- That foam cup will still reside in the county landfill when our great grandchildren are driving their offspring in a nuclear-powered mini-van to gymnastics classes on the moon. "Will you look at those kids jump!" By then the landfill will be the tallest manmade feature in north-central Indiana, visible from earth orbit. Astronauts will steer their sleek ships by the neon glow of all our waste. By Ken Smith.
It’s a Long, Long, Road from May to December -- Over the years Kurt Weill’s music has inspired a legion of devotees who want to be a part of his creepy luster. Some fifty years after Weill’s death Lou Reed took a stab at getting in on this kind of cool. Now, Lou is just about as cool as there is too. In the 1960s he co-founded the rock band, The Velvet Underground, and as the story goes, only a couple of thousand copies of their first album were sold, but everyone who listened to it formed their own band. The man gives new meaning to having no vocal range, and yet conveys everything that needed to be said. By Jonathan Nashel.
Pomp and Happenstance -- Truly, the moments in our lives that really deserve a brass band and velvet robes and a basso profundo voice saying “Something BIG has happened here!” are most often happenstance, unexpected. Maybe you’ve had the experience of reading a novel or seeing a film that shifts you, profoundly, to another axis – that peoples your interior with ideas or characters that become guides – or cautionary figures – for the rest of your life. Or maybe you’ve had a conversation with someone that suddenly made your world slide sideways as you questioned your faith – or gained a new sense of it. Those are moments that warrant pomp and circumstance, but they often pass quietly, despite their transformative legacy. By April Lidinsky.
A Kid and a Rock -- But every night I come home, the kid is hammering on the rock. He’s like a little John Henry. Small stones dislodged and fell to the dirt but then larger ones emerged, and eventually the worst one of all: a granite field stone the size of a pumpkin embedded in there till the end of the world. “This is hard,” he said. “Yeah, it is,” I said, watching the woman glare at me from hell. I left town for vacation. Two weeks. I was carrying an armload of sleeping bags back around the house when I stopped. The concrete monster was gone. Just a circle of rock dust in its place, littered with stones and in the center, the big granite pumpkin. I smiled. He did it. Dang. I’m going to go hug that kid. Buy them both a pizza or something. By Jeff Nixa.
True to Type -- We talk about what we are reading, what we have read, what we’ve read about reading (God bless the Sunday New York Times Book Review section!) and what we are planning to read next. Standing in front of the bookcase, my daughter-in-law, Nancy, and I were having one of those discussions. I think that she was holding Bobbie Ann Mason’s Clear Springs; she flipped to the back and saw the page that tells which font was used in printing the book and a bit of history about that font. Nancy said, “I can’t believe that they waste a page putting that in there. Nobody cares about that!” Danger! A big, evil-mother-in-law-trap just waiting to ensnare me there! Recognizing it in time, I pulled the shreds of my seldom-worn garment of tact around myself and did not blurt out, “Are you nuts! That’s a great thing! I love it when they put that in! It’s like frosting on a cookie; it makes it ever so much better!” By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
Jump Ball at the Hoosier Primary -- I can’t believe it! At long last, Indiana matters during the national campaign season. We’re in the news every day. We Hoosiers have been crafty, too, not tipping our hand as to whom we favor. We’ve made Indiana a real battleground state, forcing the candidates to pour ad dollars into our communities in a despairing sort of Vegas binge. Here in the second congressional district, we’re a battleground within a battleground. And permit me to announce loudly that I’m an “undecided voter.” You guessed it: a battleground within a battleground within a battleground, the center of a political universe in which not knowing what you want makes you royalty. By Joe Chaney.
Doing Algebra -- I’m doing quite a bit of algebra these days, helping our young mathematician solve homework problems. I last took algebra from Mr. Webb way back in the year 19-mumble-mumble, when President Nixon was still lovingly adding names to his enemies list. My strongest memory from Mr. Webb’s class was that he never learned his students’ names. He called everyone Babe. No matter who you were, he’d say, “Babe, put the next problem on the board. Thanks, Babe.” But he must have been a pretty good teacher, because after a quick refresher I can solve a basic problem. And so for the moment I still have a role to play in our teen’s life. By Ken Smith.
Skirting the Issue -- Now, Land’s End and other sensible clothiers exploit this swimsuit anxiety brilliantly to play on both the intelligence and self-loathing of grown-up women. For one thing, you practically have to have your Ph.D. in Swimsuit-ology to wade through the thick catalogues hitting mailboxes now, with bold headlines promising “Flattering Solutions” – implying every body is a problem. In fact, you can shop by “anxiety zones,” choosing which body part you think most needs to be slimmed, supported, disguised, and, somehow, covered, all while revealing more than most of us care to face in full-length mirrors, fully clothed. By April Lidinsky.
Baby, It’s Cold Inside -- After you see these photos you will probably wonder what we can do to prevent every single last iceberg from melting away and becoming history. Here, I confess, I have no idea. I’ve heard it all before: lower carbon footprints, drive hybrids, recycle with abandon, hate the oil companies, love to read in the dark, you name it. And you know what: none of this is going to bring back these icebergs or grow new ones or do anything to stop our relentless destruction of the earth, let alone quell the naysayers on global warming. I recently heard on NPR that an iceberg the size of Connecticut just broke apart and is melting away. Now, I’ve been in Connecticut many times and I still can’t wrap my head around this little fun fact. What can possibly be the size of a state? By Jonathan Nashel.
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