Volume21, Number 10 February 17, 2000
My Vacation
I've often wondered why I can never leave this fair city on an airplane for any trip anywhere without being almost a complete wreck by the time I reach the stuffy accordion-like boarding tube as it squeezes against the body of the big plane. Much of the problem likely stems from the way my own personal views on flying have changed since childhood. When I was 10 or 11 years old, nothing could be more exciting and glamorous and highly anticipated than the rush of taking off on a journey by plane. I looked forward to the return trip more than the actual destination most of the time.
Now it's quite a different story. It must have something to do with the ever-increasing number of air disasters I've witnessed on the news over the years cumulatively. As a child there were far less of them bouncing around in my memory to get in the way of the thrill. Presently there are a battery of gruesome instances that frighten me endlessly and I can't help but think about them, all in gory graphic and terrifying detail. Instead of thinking about taking a tour of the cockpit and being treated extra nice by foxy stewardesses my mind cant seem to let go of that crowded jet that crashed in the ocean off the coast of Venezuela and all the passengers evacuated the fuselage only to be eaten quickly by sharks, a situation captured by news cameras all unable to rescue a soul, or the flight that went down in the Florida swamp where the first thirty feet of totally opaque mixture of water and rotted vegetation is full of snakes and alligators, which in the end didn't really matter because the occupants of that flight had already been baked thoroughly by temperatures exceeding 1500 degrees caused by the fire that brought them down, and that one flight that depressurized at a high altitude and velocity turning its occupants into hamburger yet staying in flight via automatic pilot, to name a few. Now I know that the chances of getting killed are greater just getting to the airport than they are going down in a plane, but no matter what, I cant shake the thought that there is a slight chance that I could end up dying with someone else's teeth in my head.
That is why I'm notoriously late for flights, missing more than a few over the years. It's hard not running late to do something you'd rather not do, so I tend to be late packing, late preparing things for my absence, late phoning a cab, secretly wishing for traffic jams, I think I even subconsciously wear steel-toed boots and my super-chic and proletariat Carhart work pants with lots of metal rivets and excessive change, keys, wallet chains, pocket knifes etc. in the pockets just to possibly create a terrorist scare that may keep me grounded. I also always arrive at SFO having most assuredly not slept a wink, possibly stoned on pot to calm the nerves, definitely on borrowed valium and possessing correct change for quick purchase of an in-flight cocktail no matter how early in the morning it was. Odd, I get to the airport theses days feeling like I need a representative to walk me directly to where I need to go, just like when I was a kid and had to fly alone with out adult supervision and the airline provided an adult guide to make sure that passengers under 12 who were traveling alone made their connecting flights and didn't get kidnapped and sold into white slavery like my mother warned me about if I were to wander around on my own.
That wouldn't be a problem any more I thought, slightly disgruntled as a shuttle bus took me to a plane that was smaller than any other I had ever been on except for the private plane that belonged to one of my Mothers' boyfriends when I was about 9 or 10. He used to take us flying frequently until my Mother finally realized that he was married. Many years later that man's wife went missing, apparently stepped out of their rural home to get firewood and never returned. After a brief period of mourning and posting signs around the community, he became involved with another woman and that relationship apparently soured because he was caught attempting to murder her in some strange caper involving hiding in the trunk of her car with a sawed off shotgun, waiting for the right country back road to send her a fire-y buckshot love letter from behind. He was found guilty and while doing time for that crime of passion there was a drought and a local reservoir's water level got very low, low enough to reveal the same man's missing wife, tied up and weighted down at the bottom. That's a mighty strange place to go searching for firewood, at the bottom of a lake, wouldn't you say? It's kind of odd that on a little plane piloted by a cold-blooded murderer I never got a bit scared of flying, not near as frightened as I was of boarding this 16 passenger tin can on a flight back to Medford, Oregon to visit my mother. My sister was flying in on a similarly small plane from the Seattle area as well. This was my first visit home in about 6 years. Clenching the arms of my chair with my eyes closed tightly for take-off, I wondered if there had been more Twin Peaks-like events for my mom to share with me like that one about her murderous ex-boyfriend. The stewardess interrupted with an offering of trail mix.
My Mom and my sister were waiting in the terminal to greet me and take me to breakfast, but not before they had a good look at me and matter-of-factly pointed out that it appeared my hair was thinning on top, that I was actually balding. I thanked them for pointing that out and my mom tried to talk me into a bloody Mary with breakfast but I declined much to her surprise. In the time since I've moved away from Oregon, the population of my hometown has doubled from 40,000 to 80,000. A town with one main shopping center or mall when I left now boasts about 18 full on sprawling suburban malls and it appears to me that people who live there have little else to do but shop their brains out all the time. As my visit rolled on it became clear that the two main things my mother and sister and I did were eat and thrift store shop. One day we drove over to see the house where we grew up and there had been so much development all around it that we almost couldn't pick it out. There were new homes as far as the eye could see, big homes, many with one feature that astonished me to no end, and that was-no lie-the four car garage! Can you believe it? They are everywhere When we found our old house we realized that it was empty, on the market I guess, so we got out of the car and went peering into the windows enjoying such fond memories as the time I knocked my teeth out running into the kitchen table or that one valentines day when I was helping my mother frost heart shaped cookies and a bolt of lightening shot through the glass of our back door and knocked me off the stool I stood on. No real hidden traumas were relived or faced, no suppressed memories of ritualistic abuse or anything that regressive hypnotherapy might bring out, but there was one thing that made me a bit sad and angry. Completely removed from the five acre lot that was our property were three of the greatest willow trees ever, two super tall dogwoods, three apple, two filbert and a plum tree had all been removed-along with a great barn (the first place I smoked pot ever), our entire pasture, even the pear orchards just beyond our back fence where wild asparagus grew at the base of every pear tree in the spring and the stacks of pear crates and palettes where we would hide when the cops were looking for my brothers or one of us was thinking of running away.
Speaking of brothers and cops, my one brother was just released from jail on the day I arrived, but I didn't really get a chance to see him as the court has ordered him to keep a distance of a hundred yards from my mother and her house, which he broke into a while back, a behavior not at all unfamiliar with him over the years. For the first time ever my mothers home had a security system installed, which made for a bit of excitement late one night when I stepped out on the patio for a cigarette and set it off. My sister did go off one afternoon to visit my jailbird brother, she asked me if I'd like to go along but I declined thinking about all the times he shot at me with a bb gun, tried his hand at the same target with a bow and arrow, threw rocks at me and even scalded me with extra hot water when we bathed together as children. Gee, was that abusive? Was I tortured ritualistically? Hmmmm.
I sort of understood my sister paying him a visit, as her own two sons ages 16 and 18 are both in institutions as well, a sad fact that I still can't believe. The oldest is in a full on adult facility and the younger is in a sort of drug rehab/reform school type place. My sister has been a very devoted and smart parent but a very unfortunate turn of events for her boys really left them both labeled and defined in such a harsh manner that I believe they are merely playing out the roles that the authorities and the community hung around their necks like a dead albatross. This is the kind of thing that can happen when you force a 13 or 15 year old to attend AA meetings. Think about it. My sister is plagued by terrible migraines, so I brought her one of those things you keep cool in your refrigerator and lay across your eyes for relief. She loved it. I didn't tell her how I use one as well, mostly after non-stop partying with a substance that has been a major part of her kids' problems. While she was out seeing my brother, Mom pointed out the Bailey's Irish cream in the refrigerator is much better than cream for my coffee. I heartily agreed and we both had a second cup and I proceeded to teach her a few things about her new laptop computer, which she is really starting to enjoy.
I brought along a little framed picture of my cat, Handsome and placed it on my bedside table for a laugh and found myself talking about my pet quite a bit, bolstering that good old "isn't he eccentric" kind of impression that I know my family enjoys. My sister has a Boston terrier that she is rather fond of too and one night we confided in each other that we really like animals more than we like most people. My mother laughed and said we were silly but we shot looks at each other that said, "She thinks we're kidding!"
My other brother, who enjoys killing animals and holds the worlds record for largest blacktail mule deer killed one year, came by for a visit with his wife a nurse who has a real penchant for sewing and crafting really cute things like the nice vacuum cleaner cozy that looks like a cow which stares at me while I sleep in the guest room and stuff like that. I believe they are both on a lot of antidepressants but I've really grown to like my oldest brother. He's an honest man making an honest living at the lumber mill. Late one night when they were over playing Hearts in the dining room with my mom and sister, someone knocked on the door and I answered it. It was a very tall lean and handsome boy in a big black cowboy hat and oversized baggy jeans-my older brother's son whom I hadn't seen for about 8 years. He had just gotten off work at a pizza place where I used to work as well. He hung out in the living room with me for awhile, treating me like a peer-like the really cool rebel uncle who doesn't play the pair up-buy a house-breed game like everyone else. He then went into the dining room to face the third degree from his parents and his aunt and grandmother about where he was going when he left there, who with, would he be drinking, would he be smoking pot, would there be girls there, etc. He fielded the interrogation with such finesse I wanted to grab my stash and slip him something on his way out the door but I didn't because a special news report interrupted programming and the family huddled about the television listening to the news of the Alaska Airlines flight that went down off the California coast. "Aren't we flying out on Alaska Airlines tomorrow, Mom?" my sister asked. "Yes we are," my mom giggled. "Oh nuts!" I went and grabbed my tickets and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank Godâ¤|I'm on United," I said. We all had a good laugh. My flight home was without incident, arriving 8 minutes early even.
