United Airlines

This post will be both a small rave and a longer rant.

United Airlines.

I flew with United Airlines from Aspen to Chicago to Newark the other day coming back from my meetings on participating in a documentary on the “spirit” of the late and great singer John Denver.

More on that in later posts.

United Airlines! From my perspective is the "cattle call" of airlines.

In most of their terminals they have boarding group lines from one to five. Depending on your group number, you stand in line and file through a station-like opening to board the plane.

It seems to me that the specific airlines should be able to figure out a way to freely board the plane as passengers arrive at the gate. Most trains do that; you arrive, you get on board. The process would eliminate the lines. It would however, require that early boarding passengers be fair and not put their carry-ons in someone else’s overhead space. And that’s not likely unless the flight attendants on board supervise the process.

The first leg of the flight was freezing. I had my coat and gloves on because the cabin heat was low or turned off. Several passengers asked about it.

Once onboard the second leg and during the flight there was a video screen of Direct-TV fourteen inches from my face. I could not turn it off. I was subjected to visual advertisements, promotions, and annoying visuals the entire flight. If I’d had a pin I would have put a paper napkin over the screen.

Next the attitude of the flight attendants was nearly robotic. Gone were the days of friendly smiles and the camaraderie that used to be there. Granted, I was in steerage, but so were the majority of the passengers. Collectively we were the high payers of the flight, not the sixteen in first class, yet steerage gets short shrift and far less service. Food was a box or a drink if you wanted to buy it.

At the end of the flight the flight attendants did not announce the baggage claim area. At the claim area the sign said one carousel and the bags were delivered to another.

United you suck!

Oh, yes, the rave. United left on time.

Winny

His teachers said he would never amount to anything. After his first term at boarding school, a teacher wrote a blunt letter home. The boy, the note said, never focused on his work and was never on time.

The tardy boy became a tardy man. Always late, but too important to be left behind. If his speech ran long, dinner parties waited, trains were held, and generals cooled their heels, even royalty waited.

Early in this man's extraordinary career he was reported to be the highest paid journalist in the world. He was originally trained as an Army officer at Sand Hurst, that's the British equivalent of West Point. His first " public" adventure began in India. British General Sir Bindon Blood had been dispatched with three brigades to put down a revolt. The only way the young military man could get to go was as a war correspondent. The London Daily Telegram paid five pounds per column and another paper bought three hundred words each day.

His colorful dispatches put him in the public eye and his courage served him well. The fight at one point became so heavy that the special correspondent found himself commanding a rear guard action. There was talk of a medal, but better yet, there was his best selling book about the war campaign. It quickly paid more that he earned from four years as an officer.

There were other campaigns, more war stories, his style and descriptive powers were developing. Eventually the money he made paid for his first political campaign.

 From there, the career of Winston Churchill is well known.

The West

One interesting thing about the western part of America are the surface grates in the open range cross roads. It prevents free-range cattle from wandering onto busy highways or private property. 

The cattle will not step onto the grate for fear of getting their hoofs caught in the small open spaces between the iron bars.

I had dinner once with Rupert Sheldrake the British biochemist, plant psychologist and prolific author. He was telling me about “morphic resonance and morphic fields” a theory whereby plants and animals and even humans inherit the habits of their species as instincts.

One example, through his research, was the surface cattle grates of western roads. Sheldrake discovered that because of a shared instinct passed from generation to generation the cattle will not walk over what even looks like a grate. In an experiment they painted a grate on the roadway and cattle would not cross it.

Fascinating stuff. Check out his website: 

www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

Every so often

Every so often I think each of us needs to be reminded of something greater than ourselves. The reminders can come in little and big ways. If we are sensitive enough to the nuances of beauty, grace, and grandure we will see the reminder in little things; a song on the radio, a bird in flight, a child's laughter, the aroma of a pine forest after a summer rain, even the sifted drifted dunes of snow.

The big reminders are not always apparent. Sometimes they slam into your consciousness. One like that hit me today as I drove from Vail to Aspen in Colorado. I rounded a curve on I-70 before me was the magnificent Glenwood canyon with steep cragged walls, the Colorado river at the base and slivered spills of sunlight resting on the high verticle out croppings.

I felt so small, but immediatly part of all That Is.

Will it never end?

Whenever nature explodes in an aberrational fury as it has in the east this year, we quickly reestablish awe for her power and acknowledge our respect for a force we cannot control or appreciate.

In nature’s harshness, there is poetic beauty.

O’ Eastern states in winters grasp

Delighting all who choose to know

What beauty comes from steady cold

And sifted, blizzard driven snow.

Drifted, diamond dunes of white

Cover street and tree and trail

With crystal sparks from nature's heart,

A blanket ode to season frail.

Long shadows cast by breaking dawn

Create the grays upon the bright

From standing buildings tall and straight

Peeking, poking through the white.

Cold, early hurried people trudge,

With crunchy steps on blowing way,

Their rhythmic puffs of huffing breath

Will vanish with the warmth - someday.

In all things, we can find beauty, if we look for it. The looking, however, must not diminish our compassion for those who cannot see it until their weather becomes a gentle climate. Hold on, spring is coming.

Friends

Have you ever noticed when spending time with long time and good friends that nothing is sacred. One liners abound and any one who feels insulted it's their own fault.

True friendship is like that; solid, forgiving, loving, caring, and especially appreciating the other for their individualism and the shared rememberance of past joys and sadnesses of life. I am with special friends and it is wonderful. 

I hope you are as fortunate as I am.

Traveling

I'm travelling for this week.

Things I've noticed so far.

How come the hand rail of the esculator goes faster than the stairs so you have to keep adjusting your hand position on a long ride up or down?

How come the younger people in line at the airport TSA have to take off their shoes and older people do not? Don't you think there are old ones out there who imbrace violence the same as the young ones do?

How come you are sitting a few inches from your seat mates, enjoying a snack or a box meal, and nobody talks to one another?  We had that in detention and silent study in high school and no meal was involved and still we managed to communicate.

How come airlines cater to the high-paying passengers and not the steerage folks in the back? Never mind I know the answer to that question.

How come my bag that was checked in early, is the last to arrive on the carrosel?

How come airlines are still charging a surcharge and baggage fees when the cost of all fuel has gone down for the past several months?

I saw one person reading a book; the rest were on their tablets or phones all during the flight.

I think blatters shrink at high altitudes.

Don't be the C seat in an ABC configeration when your blatter shrinks. How do you spell "annoyed?"

Did you know flatulance permimeats an entire airplane cabin?