Open Writing

When I was but a lad during the Second World War, we discovered the truism that if we touched a sailor’s collar, it brought good luck. What we did not discover is who got the good luck, although we developed the habit of saying "Come back safe," as we stroked the collar of every matelot we could find.

And so I guess it would not have helped us one little bit if we had managed to find a sailor before we set off from Troy to collect Matt from Spokane Airport last Monday.

Matt flew out of Manchester early Monday morning and landed at Philadelphia, where the customs searchers discovered that his can of Pepsi had split and emptied itself in his carry on, and that the bottle of Tesco’s Dandelion and Burdock had emptied itself in his checked suitcase without splitting or breaking the seal during its long flight across the Atlantic in the cargo hold.

It gave a kind of sad tint to his clothes as it sloshed around.

What amazed us was that he left the bottle in to empty itself some more during the flight to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Spokane. I asked him why he hadn’t thought to remove it in Philadelphia, but he said it had not occurred to him.

We drove the three hour journey, stopping for a single bathroom call for the doggies, and one more at Hayden Lake to let Mary Ann see how big our little puppy had grown in the five weeks since we adopted her, and then we continued to the airport.

We arrived in good time and checked the indicator board to see what time the Chicago flight got in. It was marked two hours delayed.

We found a United Airlines operator and asked what the chances were that it would make up time, considering that the journey from Chicago to Spokane was all downhill. The operator checked and said it could be earlier, then asked the name of the party we were to meet.

I told her, and as she checked the passenger list, her brow furrowed even deeper as she scrolled down the list. I knew bad news when I saw it!

She spoke: "He didn’t get on the plane!"

"Where is he?" This was worrying. Why couldn’t I have found a sailor?

"He has rebooked on this flight tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" There was an echo in baggage claim area.

"Tomorrow. Wait a moment."

We waited.

"He rebooked while tonight’s flight was standing at the gate."

"Standing at the gate?" Again, the echo.

"Just a moment." She reached for the telephone and called Chicago airport to check up on my lost boy. They could not find him, and presumed he had checked into a motel for the night to wait until tomorrow’s flight.

"Is there only one flight a day from Chicago?"

"Yes. It arrives tomorrow night at 9.421 Pacific Time." That translates to 10.421 Mountain Time, and we are Mountain Timers.

Another trip through the night into the wee small hours of the morning. What can’t be cured must be endured, so we endured it. We arrived back home at 2.30 am and even the dogs were dog-tired.

We checked our telephone answering machine. The light was flashing. There was a message from Matt. "Hi dad, this is Matt. I’m at the Motel Super Eight in Chicago. Call me when you get home."

He didn’t leave a telephone number. I called his mobile ‘phone, but the English voice told me that he was not available. I later learned from Matt that he had turned it off to save the battery. Good thinking!

Directory enquiries found numbers for three "Super Eights" near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. We found him in the second one. We didn’t go into details at that time, but he said he was leaving for Spokane on the seven-thirty am flight from Chicago. A bell rang.

"There is only one flight a day from Chicago to Spokane and it is at seven thirty pm."

"Are you sure?"

"That’s what we were told."

"Shall I look on my ticket?"

"Great idea."

A silent pause of about thirty seconds.

"That’s right! Seven thirty pm!"

"OK, Matt, have a good night and we’ll see you tomorrow."

"OK, Dad, goodnight."

We went to bed and slept the sleep of the dead. The next day, I slept most of the day, being somewhat refreshed when it was time to head out for the airport once again. As we passed familiar landmarks in Bonner’s Ferry, I asked Gay if she had ever had déjà vu. She said she had.

We arrived at the airport in good time and checked the destination boards. Now you are having déjà vu! Right on time, Matt came down the steps from the gate and into the baggage claim area.

Then the carousel began and the fellow to my right took the same wrong bag from the roundabout four times! "Jet lag?" I suggested. He grinned and nodded. Matt’s bag came, I picked it up, got a hernia, and then we walked out to the car park for an uneventful ride home.

Once we reached home, we sorted out the swimming pool that Matt called his suitcase. Almost everything was wet with Dandelion and Burdock. The bottle had a tiny drop left in it. We loaded Matt’s light coloured clothing into the washing machine and piled the dark stuff on the floor for the morning.

We separated his toiletries and washed them off in the sink before putting them in his bathroom.

The last things to come out of his luggage were two wonderfully big jars of rich savoury Marmite! Three jars of Patak’s delicious lime pickle! Two big bottles of HP Brown Fruit Sauce, and several packets of unimaginably scrumptious confectionary delights from Thornton’s Chocolate Cabin!

And, I had my son to stay with me.

The wet luggage and the double drive to Spokane faded into appropriate insignificance as I looked at my son, hugging him in welcome. Moreover, the eye bath measure of D&B that had managed to stay inside its bottle was delicious!

Copyright © 2004
Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED