It’s another dank, dark, dreary day in the nation’s heartland. If I didn’t have a calendar sitting on my desk I would swear it is November, not just past mid-October. I wish I was sitting on the sand at Ipanema Beach in Rio right now. OK, I also wish I was 40 years younger and had a body that would not cause all the other beach-goers to convulse in laughter.
I wish I were leaving on a jet plane, and not knowing when I would be back again. I would love to hop on my private jet and fly to San Francisco to see my daughter. Yeah, I know I don’t have a private jet. Well, I wish I could get on a Southwest or United or American jet and head to San Francisco to see my daughter. OK, so it is just my daughter’s dream to live in San Francisco. She still lives in Nebraska. Why can’t I dream that she has fulfilled her dream and I am going to visit her?
Actually, I wouldn’t mind living in San Francisco part of the year. Every time I have visited I feel like my soul is being rejuvenated the second I step off the airplane. I have tried Otis Redding’s idea of sitting on the dock of the bay, and while his experience was melancholy, mine was not. I love to people watch and there is no better place on earth to watch people. The bay is almost freaky with activity. One moment a huge ocean going container ship passes by, and in its wake you might see a sail boat, or even a kayak. In an essay no one seemed to like I mentioned that it would be wonderful if humans if humans could only follow the example of ships and boats and get along.
If I lived in San Francisco I wouldn’t wear a flower in my hair, but I would eat at the McDonalds on Haight Street. How ironic to see the golden arches across from Golden Gate Park.
I wish I was still treasurer of ASJA, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, or about 1,300 writers with more talent than me. I loved visiting the city that never sleeps. Riding into Manhattan from LaGuardia Airport is certainly a culture shock for a boy from small town Nebraska. The ASJA home office is on Broadway, and what address is more American? I remember staying at the Hilton Hotel, just a few blocks away from the ASJA office, agog at the big screens on every building, and yes the neon lights too, though I don’t play a guitar, and no way do you get a shoe shine for one thin dime. Anyway, I remember walking to the office and thinking that in three blocks and a mere five minutes I passed many more people than live in my old home town of North Bend.
Chicago is my kind of town. A Cubs game is on my bucket list. Maybe my friend Tony Anville who is close with the Ricketts family, new owners of the Cubs, can get me some passes. Actually, I am so dull that I can be entertained merely staying in my hotel room at the Hilton O’Hare Hotel. I have often said there is something about airports that stir me, but watching all the hubbub at the world’s busiest, or maybe it is just the second busiest, airport is a joy for me to behold. I love watching planes, big or little, zoom down the runway and take off. I love seeing names like Air France, British Airways, JAL, Aer Lingus, Lufthansa, and Alitalia plastered on a 747. I am beyond intrigued about why someone is flying to Chicago from London or Paris or Melbourne or Tokyo. Of course I am also intrigued by the tiny commuter prop jet arriving from Evansville.
I have never been to the Chicago stock yards or the Wrigley Building, or even the building that is no longer called the Sears Tower. I have never seen the Magnificent Mile either. Someday, maybe.
By the time I get to Phoenix, I hope that I will not miss my connecting flight. I have never just been to Phoenix. I have been to Phoenix en route to San Francisco or Los Angeles or Omaha, but never just to Phoenix. I love flying into the Phoenix airport, I hate getting around that airport. I always seem to arrive at a gate near the end of one terminal and find out I am going to depart from a gate at the end of another terminal.
Same way with Big D, little a, double l-a-s. I have never just been to Dallas. I would love to go there some day to watch Nebraska dispatch Texas in the Big 12 championship game, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Not that DFW is a big airport, but there have been times it seemed like the jet I was on taxied longer than it took to fly from Omaha. I do like the sky trains much better than the old underground railroad at this airport.
I guess I am suffering from wanderlust today. Still, it is always great to get back to Omaha-and yes, there has been a song or two about Omaha, at least Moby Grape had a hit record titled ‘Omaha.’ If you didn’t know it already, Omaha has the world’s cleanest airport. It says so right on the cakes in the men’s urinals. Actually, it is true. Of the 30 or so airports I have visited, Omaha is by far the cleanest. There is no place like home.
No jets, just a quick vacation in my mind. It is still dank, dark, and dreary in Nebraska, and now there is a gusty wind coming from northwest, right out of Canada. O Canada, I would love to drive your highway to Alaska, but not in October.
Thanks for stopping by.
Comments