"My Journey - Yesterday"

Sydney M. Williams
November 18, 2010

My Journey – Yesterday

“A journey is like a marriage.

The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

                                                                                                                                       Travels with Charley (1962)
                                                                                                                                        John Steinbeck (1902-1968)

Everyone has had unusual travel experiences. I almost wrote “trips from Hell”, but that would not be true about mine yesterday. This was just different.

On Tuesday I went to visit my brother Stuart who three years ago moved to the flat, but generally ice-free, plains of West Texas in Abilene. He had moved from the decidedly rocky – and often icy – hills of New Hampshire. Stuart suffers from a condition known as Prader-Willi Syndrome, which stunts growth, causes obesity and impacts motor skills. Nevertheless, he is an accomplished artist and has exhibited in Boston, New York and New Hampshire; however, ice, snow and Stuart do not mix well.

The trip out was uneventful. Not so the return.

My 10:40AM American Eagle flight from Abilene to Dallas was cancelled; thereby imperiling my 1:00PM connection to New York. Mechanical trouble was cited as the cause; so my plane limped from the gate to wherever they take ailing jets in Abilene. The next two flights were booked solid, but I was promised a seat on the 5:00PM. If you have ever been to Abilene you will know that the idea of spending six hours at their airport, as pleasant as the employees are, is not something you would wish upon your mother-in-law.

So I did the “New Yorky” thing. I booked myself on the 3:30PM from Dallas and called a car service.

That took a while, because car services in Abilene are rare. Nevertheless, the Classic Cab Company came through, but by the time they did I had to cancel the 3:30PM and re-book on the 4:25PM, this time upgrading myself to first class, as compensation for the pain and suffering I had already endured.

My driver, Bud Gonzales who is the owner, showed up about noon – in a white pickup truck for the 200 mile ride to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Of course, finding an abandoned, desperate east coast stranger he had no compunction in charging New York prices. Given my state, I hardly noticed. Throwing my bag in the bed of the pickup, Bud proceeded to talk his way to Dallas. I learned more than I needed about his early life in Del Rio and Sanderson and that the common term for 1000 acres is a “section”, as in “how many sections does your daddy’s ranch encompass?” We passed dozens of ranches, a couple of hills scattered here and there, and the carcasses of several mule deer who had made the mistake of venturing onto I-20.

Other than the fact there was no gun rack behind my back, the truck was indistinguishable from most of the other vehicles on the road. Feeling like a stranger in my country, I felt as Dorothy did when she said to Toto, “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Forgetting the size of the DFW airport and not having asked my travel agent for a gate number, I was deposited at terminal “C”, instead of “D”. However, the satisfaction of rolling up to the first class entrance in a white pickup made the fact that I was at the wrong terminal tolerable. Besides, the skytrain gave me an engineer’s view of the airport.

Naturally, the 4:25PM did not take off until 6:35PM – an hour and a half after I should have landed in New York.