What follows is a longish blog about a shortish flight.
I am at tiny Union Island Airport in Clifton on Union, in the Grenadines, part of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. That's a lot of qualifiers for a tiny airport. It is also a hot and humid airport because well, it is the Caribbean and the natives in the Caribbean sweat from conception to grave and think nothing of it. Air conditioning doesn't exist in these places. I think, I truly do, if the Carrier people suddenly descended on these perpetually hot and sticky places and offered everyone an air-conditioner, they'd say "No, thank you. We are a sweaty people. And we are OK with that."
Nearby the open-sided main ticket area (I say "main" generously, there is only one) is a small low building that houses the "Airport Shopping Centre," which is four locked blue doors. They look like they're never open. Next to it is a patio and seating area that is Dina's Dee Bar & Restaurant. Sitting there is a sassy little number whom I presume to be Dina Dee, a coffee-colored, round-faced elderly woman with a giant smile who asks me how I am.
"I'm fine," I say. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Dina Dee grins hungrily. "I'm looking at you."
Wow. So what I find out she's the mother of eight - including her youngest, 40-something Roland, who it turns out in that magical small-world way was my waiter the night before at the Petit St. Vincent resort a couple of islands and a one-hour ferry ride away. So what she is a grandmother of 13, great-grandmother of three. I'll take the shameless flirtation.
I have a lemon-lime soda and talk to her before a bunch of locals come by and they all chat and laugh like they've known each other forever, which clearly they have. Dina Dee holds forth like she's the mayor, the town sage, everyone’s mama. She seems made for the role.
Nearby is a typewritten sign entitled "Gossip." It reads "gossip is the most common form of verbal attack among black women. Passing stories around, betraying confidence, embellishing situation (sic) to make yourself look good. So if you are going to gossip about me, remember, I'm a success."
I hope my dear Dina Dee is never hurt by gossip. But knowing her as well as I have for the last 10 minutes, I'm guessing Dina don't let no hurt happen.
I am here to connect to Barbados, then on to Boston. This tiny Union Island airport has a couple of counters and sweaty people in tan TSA uniforms. I have no idea if their TSA is the same as our TSA. I suspect so because they do not smile. Two of them hand search my checked bag, asking me to unzip it.
This is how I also know they're not our TSA. IF our TSA is about to hand search your bag and you attempt to unzip it yourself, they scream "SIR! Do NOT touch the bag!" as if to do so, a device would fire out of your fingers to detonate the hydrogen bomb they are sure you're hiding.
It is at times like that I want to say "Go right ahead. But I am sure you will not find that hydrogen bomb, or that deadly and illegal 3.5-ounce bottle of hand cream, or that tiny Swiss Army keychain with a knife so small it couldn't halve a grape, that you have trained so hard to find. But go on, look." But I don't say anything because the last thing I want is a body cavity search. Well, forty years ago, maybe, but not now
So here at the tiny airport they hand search the bag I check. Ditto for my carry-on at security. Security seems comprised of one disinterested young TSA female agent and a very old and rickety looking metal detector. The non-smiling agent, whom I'm guessing on a busy day will see about six people, tells me to take off my belt. I do. Then she asks me to unzip my carry on. Which I do with one hand, while holding up my pants with the other
I empty my pockets, change, pen, cigarette lighter. She says I cannot take the cigarette lighter. I'm like "what?" She's like "No."
I smoke. To a smoker who suddenly has his lighter denied him, well, it's pretty upsetting. You can lose my luggage, you can steal my money, you can find a hydrogen bomb in my bag, but you take my lighter, you are seriously tipping my emotional scale to "Oh fucking hell."
As any smoker knows, after a long, hideous, non-smoking day of flying and airports, the ONLY thing that matters when you're finally free of it all is that first lovely, life-shortening puff of cigarette the second you step outside. So be it, I think, as she takes my shitty $1 Bic. I wish I just left it in my pocket because frankly, this metal detector I walk through is so old I've no doubt I could be a bazooka salesman and walk through it with the newest model strapped to my leg and it would not utter one peep.
My plane, flown by Mustique Air, is due to leave at 11. At precisely 11, another plane bound for Barbados, my connecting airport, comes and goes. I ask another disinterested TSA agent where my plane is. He shrugs "Mustique is never on time." Suddenly and inexplicably the tiny lounge just past the old metal detector is alive with shrieking girls, like it was 1963 and the Beatles just walked in. I ask another agent what the commotion is. She actually smiles. And actually says "Someone's excited about something."
Ah.
On one wall are posters touting Chinese destinations. I somehow think there are no flights to China from here. On a door is a poster warning about inappropriately touching or molesting young children. The poster is old and fraying. It makes me wonder if Michael Jackson once had Neverland the Caribbean here.
My plane arrives. I am the only passenger. It is a twin prop J8-Kim, which I must look up, because I've never seen one. It is actually roomy if you're the only one aboard, a five seater: A three-person bench seat faces front and two solo seats face rear. All are off-white leather, soft and comfy. There is a long fold-away table in the middle. I imagine this as a private charter with five very evil people going over papers on the fold-away table to plot their hostile takeover of a small country of sweaty people, from which they’ll launch a global attack. It gives me chills that such evil exists until I remember it's just my fantasy. Sometimes they seem so real. Could be the heat.
There is only one pilot. Every time I get on a small plane with one pilot, I go "Hmmm, suppose he dies? Suppose this son of a bitch wants to die? Suppose his instrument of death happens to be this plane? Suppose this son of a bitch doesn't care I don't want to die. It's happened before."
This causes me some concern. I don't want to have to fly the plane. But this guy is in his 30s. He looks hale and healthy and handsome. I watch his every move, just in case. You never know. I watch how he moves the stick, I watch the instruments, I watch every thing he does, hoping that some part of my brain will remember just enough to land safely if he dies and I can get him back to his family in one piece for the funeral. I like to see the bigger picture.
I don't do this in big planes with lots of passengers, figuring at least one may be a pilot. Or Karen Black-like in her ability to look sexy and somewhat fly a disabled 747 until Chuck Heston drops in. If not I figure my odds are better of landing a big plane with many people on the ground to "talk me down," as the saying goes. I'm not comfy with the "down" part of that expression because it's also part of the description of a "downed airplane," where everyone dies. I would prefer, if the situation arose, they "talk me in."
But I feel good now. This pilot, this young, handsome, non-suicidal or cardiac-impaired pilot seems to have it under control. I am secure. Until we taxi to the end of the runway and I notice it's about as long as a good-sized Band-Aid. I'm not kidding. It's very short.
When I flew in here a few days earlier, I didn't notice that. I just noticed us flying over a hill full of somewhat ramshackle-looking pastel homes and over a debris-strewn field with chickens running about. I didn't notice how damn short it is. And I didn’t notice that it ends, several rapid heartbeats away, in the crashing surf. Until we're revving the J8-Kim ready to roll.
But Andy (I don't know his name, he never gives it, I just name him Andy. I like naming people and things I don't know, it humanizes them and makes me feel better) thunders down the runway and never have I wanted a plane to lift off so badly. I was going to grab my iPad mini and record it, either the happy takeoff or the precise moment of my watery death, but think better of it. I instead will the plane to lift off. And miraculously, due I am certain to my positive thinking, it lifts up about two-thirds of the way down, making me wonder about helicopter flights the next time I have to fly off a good-sized Band-Aid.
We fly over the Tobago Cays, an archipelago where the day before I’d snorkeled and swam with the turtles. And had an onboard barbecue. And three extremely powerful rum punches. which is unusual because on most of these charters you get way more punch than rum. But these made me tipsy and I hoped I wouldn't hurl on the way back the way a sweet young girl on her honeymoon did on the way out. But I don’t. And for the record, I don't know if the Tobago Cays are indeed an archipelago. I just like the word. It makes me feel better. Call this archipelago my Andy of the ocean.
We land in Barbados and taxiing in Andy opens the door to let in some of the stifling hot air that's at least moving. This is not unusual in small planes. But I notice that the door and his hand seem so very close to the spinning propeller.
Now I'm worried about Andy. I don't want to see his left arm get caught in the prop and unleash a horrific spray of blood and bone all over the place. For one thing I'm wearing a white shirt. But my worry is for naught. When we land and Andy shuts down the engines I see the prop is a reassuring several inches away. Whew!
And that's my long story about a short flight. Except to add that when I get out of the plane I say "Andy, that was a really smooth landing." To which he says, "Well, I gotta get one right every so often...and my name isn't Andy."
Yeah right, and I don't know an archipelago when I name one.
I am at tiny Union Island Airport in Clifton on Union, in the Grenadines, part of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. That's a lot of qualifiers for a tiny airport. It is also a hot and humid airport because well, it is the Caribbean and the natives in the Caribbean sweat from conception to grave and think nothing of it. Air conditioning doesn't exist in these places. I think, I truly do, if the Carrier people suddenly descended on these perpetually hot and sticky places and offered everyone an air-conditioner, they'd say "No, thank you. We are a sweaty people. And we are OK with that."
Nearby the open-sided main ticket area (I say "main" generously, there is only one) is a small low building that houses the "Airport Shopping Centre," which is four locked blue doors. They look like they're never open. Next to it is a patio and seating area that is Dina's Dee Bar & Restaurant. Sitting there is a sassy little number whom I presume to be Dina Dee, a coffee-colored, round-faced elderly woman with a giant smile who asks me how I am.
"I'm fine," I say. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," Dina Dee grins hungrily. "I'm looking at you."
Wow. So what I find out she's the mother of eight - including her youngest, 40-something Roland, who it turns out in that magical small-world way was my waiter the night before at the Petit St. Vincent resort a couple of islands and a one-hour ferry ride away. So what she is a grandmother of 13, great-grandmother of three. I'll take the shameless flirtation.
I have a lemon-lime soda and talk to her before a bunch of locals come by and they all chat and laugh like they've known each other forever, which clearly they have. Dina Dee holds forth like she's the mayor, the town sage, everyone’s mama. She seems made for the role.
Nearby is a typewritten sign entitled "Gossip." It reads "gossip is the most common form of verbal attack among black women. Passing stories around, betraying confidence, embellishing situation (sic) to make yourself look good. So if you are going to gossip about me, remember, I'm a success."
I hope my dear Dina Dee is never hurt by gossip. But knowing her as well as I have for the last 10 minutes, I'm guessing Dina don't let no hurt happen.
I am here to connect to Barbados, then on to Boston. This tiny Union Island airport has a couple of counters and sweaty people in tan TSA uniforms. I have no idea if their TSA is the same as our TSA. I suspect so because they do not smile. Two of them hand search my checked bag, asking me to unzip it.
This is how I also know they're not our TSA. IF our TSA is about to hand search your bag and you attempt to unzip it yourself, they scream "SIR! Do NOT touch the bag!" as if to do so, a device would fire out of your fingers to detonate the hydrogen bomb they are sure you're hiding.
It is at times like that I want to say "Go right ahead. But I am sure you will not find that hydrogen bomb, or that deadly and illegal 3.5-ounce bottle of hand cream, or that tiny Swiss Army keychain with a knife so small it couldn't halve a grape, that you have trained so hard to find. But go on, look." But I don't say anything because the last thing I want is a body cavity search. Well, forty years ago, maybe, but not now
So here at the tiny airport they hand search the bag I check. Ditto for my carry-on at security. Security seems comprised of one disinterested young TSA female agent and a very old and rickety looking metal detector. The non-smiling agent, whom I'm guessing on a busy day will see about six people, tells me to take off my belt. I do. Then she asks me to unzip my carry on. Which I do with one hand, while holding up my pants with the other
I empty my pockets, change, pen, cigarette lighter. She says I cannot take the cigarette lighter. I'm like "what?" She's like "No."
I smoke. To a smoker who suddenly has his lighter denied him, well, it's pretty upsetting. You can lose my luggage, you can steal my money, you can find a hydrogen bomb in my bag, but you take my lighter, you are seriously tipping my emotional scale to "Oh fucking hell."
As any smoker knows, after a long, hideous, non-smoking day of flying and airports, the ONLY thing that matters when you're finally free of it all is that first lovely, life-shortening puff of cigarette the second you step outside. So be it, I think, as she takes my shitty $1 Bic. I wish I just left it in my pocket because frankly, this metal detector I walk through is so old I've no doubt I could be a bazooka salesman and walk through it with the newest model strapped to my leg and it would not utter one peep.
My plane, flown by Mustique Air, is due to leave at 11. At precisely 11, another plane bound for Barbados, my connecting airport, comes and goes. I ask another disinterested TSA agent where my plane is. He shrugs "Mustique is never on time." Suddenly and inexplicably the tiny lounge just past the old metal detector is alive with shrieking girls, like it was 1963 and the Beatles just walked in. I ask another agent what the commotion is. She actually smiles. And actually says "Someone's excited about something."
Ah.
On one wall are posters touting Chinese destinations. I somehow think there are no flights to China from here. On a door is a poster warning about inappropriately touching or molesting young children. The poster is old and fraying. It makes me wonder if Michael Jackson once had Neverland the Caribbean here.
My plane arrives. I am the only passenger. It is a twin prop J8-Kim, which I must look up, because I've never seen one. It is actually roomy if you're the only one aboard, a five seater: A three-person bench seat faces front and two solo seats face rear. All are off-white leather, soft and comfy. There is a long fold-away table in the middle. I imagine this as a private charter with five very evil people going over papers on the fold-away table to plot their hostile takeover of a small country of sweaty people, from which they’ll launch a global attack. It gives me chills that such evil exists until I remember it's just my fantasy. Sometimes they seem so real. Could be the heat.
There is only one pilot. Every time I get on a small plane with one pilot, I go "Hmmm, suppose he dies? Suppose this son of a bitch wants to die? Suppose his instrument of death happens to be this plane? Suppose this son of a bitch doesn't care I don't want to die. It's happened before."
This causes me some concern. I don't want to have to fly the plane. But this guy is in his 30s. He looks hale and healthy and handsome. I watch his every move, just in case. You never know. I watch how he moves the stick, I watch the instruments, I watch every thing he does, hoping that some part of my brain will remember just enough to land safely if he dies and I can get him back to his family in one piece for the funeral. I like to see the bigger picture.
I don't do this in big planes with lots of passengers, figuring at least one may be a pilot. Or Karen Black-like in her ability to look sexy and somewhat fly a disabled 747 until Chuck Heston drops in. If not I figure my odds are better of landing a big plane with many people on the ground to "talk me down," as the saying goes. I'm not comfy with the "down" part of that expression because it's also part of the description of a "downed airplane," where everyone dies. I would prefer, if the situation arose, they "talk me in."
But I feel good now. This pilot, this young, handsome, non-suicidal or cardiac-impaired pilot seems to have it under control. I am secure. Until we taxi to the end of the runway and I notice it's about as long as a good-sized Band-Aid. I'm not kidding. It's very short.
When I flew in here a few days earlier, I didn't notice that. I just noticed us flying over a hill full of somewhat ramshackle-looking pastel homes and over a debris-strewn field with chickens running about. I didn't notice how damn short it is. And I didn’t notice that it ends, several rapid heartbeats away, in the crashing surf. Until we're revving the J8-Kim ready to roll.
But Andy (I don't know his name, he never gives it, I just name him Andy. I like naming people and things I don't know, it humanizes them and makes me feel better) thunders down the runway and never have I wanted a plane to lift off so badly. I was going to grab my iPad mini and record it, either the happy takeoff or the precise moment of my watery death, but think better of it. I instead will the plane to lift off. And miraculously, due I am certain to my positive thinking, it lifts up about two-thirds of the way down, making me wonder about helicopter flights the next time I have to fly off a good-sized Band-Aid.
We fly over the Tobago Cays, an archipelago where the day before I’d snorkeled and swam with the turtles. And had an onboard barbecue. And three extremely powerful rum punches. which is unusual because on most of these charters you get way more punch than rum. But these made me tipsy and I hoped I wouldn't hurl on the way back the way a sweet young girl on her honeymoon did on the way out. But I don’t. And for the record, I don't know if the Tobago Cays are indeed an archipelago. I just like the word. It makes me feel better. Call this archipelago my Andy of the ocean.
We land in Barbados and taxiing in Andy opens the door to let in some of the stifling hot air that's at least moving. This is not unusual in small planes. But I notice that the door and his hand seem so very close to the spinning propeller.
Now I'm worried about Andy. I don't want to see his left arm get caught in the prop and unleash a horrific spray of blood and bone all over the place. For one thing I'm wearing a white shirt. But my worry is for naught. When we land and Andy shuts down the engines I see the prop is a reassuring several inches away. Whew!
And that's my long story about a short flight. Except to add that when I get out of the plane I say "Andy, that was a really smooth landing." To which he says, "Well, I gotta get one right every so often...and my name isn't Andy."
Yeah right, and I don't know an archipelago when I name one.