Memories of Stearns County: Flying the Friendly Skies

In 2001 a friend asked me to attend her wedding on an island in Croatia . It was just off Split on the Adriatic, the location were the first Christian Roman emperor Diocletian fled to avoid his death. The remits of his headquarters are still at the heart of Split, home of the sculptor Mestrovic. Lucky for me I had a friend Peter Andrusko, who spent his high school and and college living in then Yugoslavia, sent me to his Slavic travel agent. Split is often reached by ferry from Italy, however I wanted to spend some time in Vienna, and Budapest since I would be so close to my heritage. The travel agent arranged my whole trip and lodging except lodging in Dubrovnik, site of war bombing 10 years earlier, an international heritage city. Our host, the bride's father, had arranged for the wedding attendees to hydroplane down there for a few days, stopping at special historic islands on the way. Not having hotel reservations in Dubrovnik slightly concerned me but I hoped for the best. The itinerary was Portland to Washington DC, Washington DC to Vienna, Vienna to Split; a flight that only happened three times a week then. Later from Dubrovnik to Vienna, ferry or train to Budapest, and final flight to New York and Portland.

My friend Mary Ann agreed to take me to the airport at 600 am for my flight to DC I gave her my itinerary given to me buy my travel agent. She accompanied me to United airlines check-in counter. The clerk informed me that my flight to DC would be two hours late. I told her that that would miss my connection to Vienna. She replied: THAT'S NOT MY PROBLEM. She then reached for her phone to answer a call and asked me to move aside for the next customer. I reached over the counter and put my hand on her phone, and asked for an alternative route, she said that’s not possible. I demanded to see her supervisor and held my ground, stopping the line. A women came out and told me again ITS NOT OUR PROBLEM and looked at her computer and told me a United flight was loading right now for Chicago and maybe I could get a flight from Chicago to DC, no promises. I started running!

When I got on the United flight to Chicago I asked the flight attendant if she could place me near the front so I could get right out to make a possible connection to DC. She said ITS NOT MY PROBLEM, and I was given a middle seat in the rear part of plane. I was somewhat beside myself wondering if I would get to DC in time from Chicago. I was then informed that the flight would be one hour late arriving in Chicago. I then knew I didn't have a chance to be in Vienna on time for the flight to Split. I used the phone provided on the seat back to ask Mary Ann to contact the travel agent even though it was early in the morning in Portland still. Her first reaction was “why not do it yourself?” I explained it would be hard to spend much time contacting him from the plane. She said she would try. We were on our glide path twenty minutes out of Chicago when she called me back and said, get to the international terminal, in Chicago, Lufthansa Air will be waiting for you. What a treat, the best airline in the world, to Vienna with time to spare. Never would I fly United with their ITS NOT MY PROBLEM again. Nor would I advise anyone else to.

The bride arranging for me to have a room in Dubrovnik

Croatian women selling fish at the market

The wedding party on the island of Brock

Stone building in Croatia

St. Stephen's in Vienna

Fountain in Budapest

I arrived safely after that harrowing trip!

Flying Mexicana from Mexico City to Portland

What a treat

The nicest thing that happened in airline travel occurred on my last flight home from Mexico in spring of 2009. I was living in a colonial village in south central Mexico for four months, recovering from an accident that had me bedridden for four months. I rented a home for twelve months thinking I would spend six to eight months carving stone there in retirement. The home cost three hundred a month. I bought little Nissan pickup to get supplies in. The cost of living seemed right, the weather divine. The only thing lacking was telephone service, television, radio, the internet, and friends. I did not speak the language, but did have one friend living 40 miles away who was busy with his family life, and Miguel, a multiple PHD, who kept a lake cabin in the village I lived in. My doctor in Morelia noticed a dramatic weight loss and and suggested that he thought I lived too far from medical help with my heart condition. He advised me to leave the village I lived in. I eventually dropped from 170 to 143 and was very weak more or less bedridden for 10 days. I asked Miguel to make arrangements for me to fly home, which he advised me to do. He visited me twice a day the last week I was there arranging for a cab to take me to Morelia airport approximately 60 miles away from there Mexicali to Mexico City, Mexico city direct to Portland.

As you know Mexico City is a large city with a huge airport. It took me at least 45 minutes of walking from my local terminal to the international terminal for the Portland flight. When I finally got there I was saddened to see the terminal was packed with little place to sit even. I was so damn weak, but I asked for an aisle seat in case I needed to move about or use the toilet. I was told the plane was full and I had a center seat. I knew then the flight home was going to be hard for me. My daughter would be waiting for me at the Portland International terminal and I had an appointment with my doctor the next day both to look forward to.

As I passed the loading desk to board the plane the clerk reached over and gave me a ticket and said I got you an aisle seat. When I got on the plane I was astonished to be seated first class aisle seat. There was a young girl I thought she was about 15 but she told me she was a 20-year-old college student and she was going to Portland with her mother the stewardess on her last flight before retiring to do some shopping and sightseeing. We had a nice chat and her mother invited me up to the front of the cabin for some cake and ice cream with the crew on the flight. I left some places to see in Portland and my phone home phone number with her mother. It was such a wonderful time that I started to feel better on the way home. I was to sick to get around for the next few days and sadly did not answer the phone when they called me to thank me for the advice I gave them and missed my chance once again to thank a woman who helped me so much in travel. I think I still have the message.

Its a huge stretch of the imagination, but I later thought about a beautiful young woman I met and spent an evening with dancing and dinner, 35 years before who was an airline stewardess out of Guadalajara . Later a friend of hers from Portland told me that she asked about me at her wedding in Guadalajara. Could it have been her? I wish there was a way to contact her, to thank her, either way