Chicago 1

Recollections of Travel 

The first time I traveled to Chicago I remember spotting the city abruptly rising up from the surface of the earth like a majestic metropolis among white clouds stationary in the sky. As I looked down, I was in awe of the biggest city I seen to date. After landing I could not wait to look around before I had to go to work the next day on Michigan Ave. 

I was born in the country and became a woman in a tiny town. I had traveled, but Chicago seemed more sophisticated than any city I had experienced thus far. I was so glad that I had brought my camera, something I had never done on a business trip. With my new Canon AE 1 in hand, I stopped worrying about looking like a tourist and started taking pictures of the tall buildings, beautiful parks and the Chicago River running through the city. Before long I felt so comfortable I imagined being a reporter for the Tribune or Sun-Times and by the time I returned to my hotel not only my feet hurt, but also my neck from looking up at the buildings reaching for the sky. What a great day, but alas I needed to prepare for work the next few days. 

Due to my company’s large presence in the area, over the next couple of years, I traveled to Chicago and its suburbs many times and it quickly became my favorite city. I still feel this way even after spending time in New York City and several European cities. Not even the fact that I had zero photographs from that momentous first trip dimmed my enthusiasm. You see, this was during the time when cameras were loaded with film and I had failed to properly engage said film in my fancy new camera so the roll that should have contained 36 newspaper worthy photos was completely blank! I learned to properly load the film and thereafter saved my fancy camera for vacations. 

My Really Bad Idea

My husband had not been to Chicago and I wanted him to experience the city, so we planned for him to accompany me on one of my trips. Having always flown into O’Hare or Midway, I was a little apprehensive about driving my pretty red sports car in the city, but I didn’t really give it a lot of thought until IT happened. 

After five hours or so on the road, discussing our plans and enjoying the trip we were in the heart of the city heading to my favorite hotel, The Knickerbocker. It was a beautiful summer day and I felt lucky we could drive leisurely with the windows down. I was enjoying Raymond’s reaction to the city I had grown to love when someone loudly blew their horn behind us. 

At the next stoplight an apparently full can of Sprite came hurtling through the open window and hit my sweet, innocent husband on the side of his face and the liquid spilled over him and sprayed the car. He looked at me incredulously and I was immediately overcome with guilt and fear. Fear is understandable as the car chased us for a couple of blocks with the driver yelling obscenities, right? But, why did I feel responsible for this terrible assault? IT happened because when the horn blew behind us I had immediately given a reflexive response. I had flipped the driver the bird. 

I now had a serious choice to make. I could allow Raymond to think the people of Chicago were jerks (and this one clearly was) and that he could anticipate being accosted on every corner. Or, I could confess and let him know his wife had precipitated the attack. I chose the latter. 

The trip was only beginning.

 

Photos by Pixabay

 

Update

Update to “One Fear Explained”

A few days ago while putting gas in my car I spotted a spider on the pump. Not just any spider, but the worst kind: big, black, and hairy. It looked at me and I knew that I would not be able to complete my task. I asked the attendant in the little glass cage if he would help me and he graciously agreed. While he topped off my tank and replaced my gas cap I sat in the car with the windows rolled up. I let my window down a crack to say, “Thank you” to the nice man and he casually asked how long I’d had arachnophobia. My reply, “Since I was a preschooler” prompted him to say, “WOW! That long!”  So, now I drove home not only frightened but insulted by my hero. 

Taken for a Ride

Recollections of Travel 

Houston

In Houston, the taxi driver taking me to MD Anderson Cancer Center was gigantic. He had a Jamaican-sounding accent and wore an enormous cowboy hat.  His remarks were friendly at first as he discussed the need for health care reform obviously assuming that I was interested in his opinions. He progressed to make disparaging remarks about “foreigners who take jobs from native Americans.” It was obvious that he considered himself to be one of the latter in spite of his very black skin, so I wondered if I was wrong about his being from Jamaica. I said something about American Indians being actual “Native Americans” and he postulated “they were not really here first,” he’d seen a documentary on PBS. I did not debate that issue with him.

During the ride, he talked cloyingly nonstop and I became rather uncomfortable as his comments grew more inappropriate in content as well as tone. At the time Ann Richards was running for governor of Texas and the driver declared that he did not want her to win, because “women should not be at the forefront.” It was hard to not debate that point, but I again managed to refrain. At that point, he asked me where I was from, not an unusual question for a driver picking up at the airport. When I said, “Louisville,” he asked about horse racing, again appropriate. I replied that the Breeder’s Cup was taking place there in a few days and his response was “I hope you breed something good down there.” Okay, so now I thought he had embarrassed both of us to the extent possible with words, but I was wrong. Suddenly he began to laugh when a female driver slowed and motioned him into the traffic flow. I thought I had missed something because it seemed simply a polite, not humorous, gesture. He spoke loudly in the car’s direction saying, “Thank You!” and then to me, “I’ll have to do something nice for a woman tonight! I’m glad that I have never impregnated a woman.” It was with considerable relief that I saw my destination up ahead. 

Baltimore

Out of all those years of travel that cab ride in Houston, TX was the most bizarre, but two others stand out as slightly concerning.  One night, after entering a cab at the Baltimore Airport and asking the brooding driver to take me to my hotel near Johns Hopkins the entire city suddenly turned black. To me, it was an ominous sign, especially that it occurred the exact moment that I stepped into the cab. He drove silently block after block, underneath unlit traffic lights, in front of darkened buildings and deadened street lights, not saying a word that acknowledged he had even noticed the blackness surrounding us. Apparently, he was a seasoned driver, because within about a half hour he pulled in front of the looming darkened hotel. He popped the trunk to get my luggage and Baltimore was immediately illuminated with a brilliance that stung my eyes!

Kansas City

Very late on another night I arrived at the airport in Kansas City and gave the driver the address of my hotel. About forty minutes later I was beginning to worry a little and then I suddenly saw that we were passing the US Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth! Much later I safely arrived at my destination and paid a $65 (in 1994 dollars!) tab which of course was an item of interest when I turned in my expense account. 

Photos by Pixabay

Fashion on the Road

Recollections of Travel

While trying to work in the Delta lounge during a long layover, I was distracted by the TV. It was not loud, in fact, the voice I heard droning on was barely a murmur. Perhaps that is why I could not resist listening to his descriptions of the perfect and perfectly beautiful models sliding onto the show runway. Their hair, flawless, shiny, and straight flowed spontaneously. The make-up was subtle in its goal of looking natural. His sensitive voice was fluid and sophisticated as he described the women. He talked about the models wearing fabrics “sort of blue, sort of yellow and sort of print.” The non-colors were equivocal, there or not there, whatever you wanted. As he proceeded to detail the faces with terms like “the non-lip,” the gaunt women walked up and down, staring into nowhere with eyes that weren’t. 

Later in the week while attending a medical conference at UCLA, I was listening to a distinguished bone marrow transplant physician, world-renowned for his pioneering work with stem cells. As he spoke, the room became absolutely silent while over one-hundred (100) attendees listened in awe to this brilliant scholar describe his latest techniques and accomplishments. 

It was impossible to not notice a movement in the back of the silent room as a woman, too polite to make a distracting click, clack noise with her four-inch heels, walked the full length of the conference room on her tip toes. As she began the trek she looked back and forth, apologetically, at those who observed her progress. She hunched over to appear smaller and assumed an awkward gait resembling a person crippled by some congenital deformity. 

The beautiful woman, hobbled by her stilettos, had broken the mood of academics absorbing knowledge and now we were simply enjoying the show.  

Photos by Pixabay

Flights Home

Recollections of Travel 

From 1984 through 2005 I traveled nearly every week for work. At first, it was to train clinical staff and open ambulatory care centers (frequently called “Docs in a Box”) in eighteen states. Later, I began Centers of Excellence network development for the same company. Among other things, I contracted for marrow and solid organ transplant services. This position took me to even more destinations including a few times to Canada. In 1997, I incorporated a consulting company still working with transplant centers coast to coast until I reluctantly retired. I believe that I am finally over airport withdrawal but it did take a while. 

During those years of planes, taxis, subways and airports, I made many observations of fellow travelers and others I encountered along the way. I will share some of those recollections that, for some reason, I recall after all these years. Some were intriguing, many more mundane. I’ll let you consider why these memories persisted when so many critical medical and technical facts from those years have evaporated. 

Tampa

While sitting in the airport in Tampa one Friday afternoon, I looked around and noted that almost without exception travelers were either holding or working with a similar small book. Some of these were wire bound, others looked like leather and they came in various sizes. How we loved our Day-Timers back in that day. They were badges of our busy lives and demanding careers. One could clearly see that we had a lot to keep up with, places to go and people with which to network. Perhaps few other 20th-century icons made a more important business statement. At that time some kids were using pagers, drug dealers even had mobile phones, but we were reluctant to transition to that digital age back in the 80s, so we proudly carried our Day-Timers everywhere, placed them lovingly into our briefcases and at intervals made critical notes. As I think back to that era, I wish I had saved at least one that recorded a year’s meetings, flights, and appointments. Today we use our smartphones to carry calendars, do banking, prepare and store documents, keep up with e-mail and social media, even monitor or control our homes, but I still recall the small paper pages that functioned on a much more limited basis but seemed equally important at the time.

A man sitting across from me in the waiting area had been dozing off and on. He was dressed in a very finely tailored suit, but the effect was minimized by his splayed legs and occasional snort. One hand was cupped over that bulge between his legs. Was he afraid that someone might steal it if it was not shielded in this manner? When he moved around for a more comfortable position, he changed hands but remained protective. Finally, the flight was called and he awakened, folded his Wall Street Journal and gathered up his leather attache. Standing, he straightened slowly and slightly shook one leg, then the other. Apparently unsuccessful,
he quickly removed the troubling wedgie with a snatch before proceeding down the jetway.

Atlanta

After a transfer in Atlanta, I’m was finally on the way to Louisville in a much smaller commuter plane. The one busy flight attendant informed us that she was from Columbia and judging from her accent, I assumed that she did not mean South Carolina. Her pre-takeoff instructions included the fact that in an emergency we were to “pull the red liver” to open the door. As we approached Standiford Field (currently Louisville International Airport) for landing the flight attendant’s voice over the speaker gave the following instruction: “If you are enjoying a beverage please pass it to a flight attendant at this time.” So, what do I do if I am not “enjoying” it, but I am simply thirsty, do I keep the cup? I am way too literal to follow instructions tonight.

Home at Last 

 

Photos by Pixabay