“Well two people are working on this flight,” he says. (He is in 22-B)
“Yeah,” she says. “Always.” She is in 22-C, grouchy because she really likes the window and after 10 years as a loyal customer could the travel agent not remember it’s window,not aisle?
As everyone else starts scrolling through movies or settling back with eye-shades on, 22-B and 22-C lower their tray tables and open their laptops.
“David,” he says, offering a hand. “Fran,” she says. “You’re editing something? Everybody needs a good editor. What’s it about?”
“Well . . . you see. . . I’m a physicist.” Much later in the flight he will explain: Ask a physicist a question, you’re going to get a very long answer. Even if the question is posed by a writer with an Art degree who is congenitally lacking in left-brain material.
Pretty soon they are joined by 22-A (the coveted window) who had started out behind the eyeshades. It turns out 22-A (I didn’t get his name over the engine noise) is a computer science student and recognizes a good thing when he finds himself seated next to it.
David is on the first leg of a trip from one top U.S. nuclear physics research and development lab to another. I’m just going to a family reunion; not sure about 22-A. What I do know for sure is that most casual airline conversations are about the weather, or legroom. Does this interest David the physicist? Hardly.
“Inertial confinement fusion. . .” he is saying. (Introduce yourself to a physicist, don’t expect to talk about legroom.) Something about shooting lasers at pellets’ exterior to turn stuff into plasma. Finally. A word I know: plasma. Part of the blood, right? Wrong. On row 22, A-C, we’re talking about a state of matter resulting from a gaseous state that’s been ionized. Or something like that.
Actually, at one point in our impromptu post-doctoral-level lecture there occurs a new concept I totally understand. David explains something about magnetized particles by performing a visual demo of grabbing one particle and stretching it to its limit. When you let go it may zap back past where it was and into space, and now you’ve got interesting stuff going on.
You can try this at home.
There’s one down-to-earth interruption when the mother-in-law sends a photo of the physicist’s lab (as in dog) whom she’s baby-sitting. But after a while, 22-C retreats into less esoteric endeavors on the aisle-side laptop, while B and A continue. There are ongoing snippets of “the algorithms just needed…” or “fun stuff…” or “nuclear fusion reactions…” or “you run the code…” and “once you get it…” But there is only so much brain elasticity available on the aisle at 34,000 feet.
Perhaps anticipating a time when all R&D labs get shut down and a podcast host is put in charge of science, David explains that “you need physicists for national security, for medicine, for the advancement of society. Even if we’re a little weird.”
The trip had been close to perfect. A granddaughter’s graduation, a few rainy days at the lake with time for good books and long naps, a weekend with friends in their new home after years abroad.
But somewhere between farewell brunch and Reagan National Airport I had caught a soul-killing bug. Or a bug I’d picked up hugging school-age kids caught me. Whichever, by the time I got through security I was feeling feverish and wishing more for a bed than a window seat.
I bought a test kit to make sure it wasn’t covid, put on double-masks and scrunched against my window for one of the most uncomfortable flights I can remember. I ached, I sniffled, I tried not to cough. Six hours felt more like six days.
Finally on the ground in San Francisco I hooked my backpack onto my carry-on —at least I travel light! — and sped toward the Uber/Lyft pick-up zone. It’s on the top level of the parking garage so these rides can be kept separate from vans, buses and other pick-ups. I’ve done this often enough to know exactly where, once off the jetway, to stop and book my ride so that (hopefully) it will arrive not long after I get to the pick-up zone.
No such luck.
On reaching the garage top floor I was greeted by a mob scene of distraught Lyft and Uber riders trying to negotiate phones and luggage while struggling to find their cars or figure out what was going on. The next day I’d learn there had been a communication breakdown; at the time there were no explanations, just a log-jam of palpable anger and frustration.
I backed away from the crowd, still wearing my uncomfortable double mask, and saw on my app that my car had suddenly switched from showing right at the door to 17 minutes away. I wasn’t sure I’d live another 17 minutes in my debilitated state. It was getting close to midnight — long past midnight Eastern Time, which my body was still on.
“Excuse me,” said a calm voice. I looked up to see a pleasant, slightly gray-haired man carrying a small bag, a computer case slung over his shoulder.
“This is a zoo,” he said. “Do you want to come with me to find a cab?” I would have followed him anywhere.
“I don’t know what level the cabs are on,” I said. “It’s been a really long time since I took one.”
“Not a problem,” he said, grabbing my stacked bag. “I’ve done this before.”
Within minutes we had made our way back into the terminal and down to the proper level where signs pointed to the taxi line. There was a steadily moving line of cabs; a half-dozen passengers were moving calmly into one after another. It had taken us less than five minutes to get from the Lyft/Uber Zone to the front cab. I had said nothing except that I wasn’t feeling well and thus the masks.
“You take this one,” my rescuer said, handing my luggage to the driver at the head of the line.
“I cannot thank you enough,” I said as I shook his hand.
“You needn’t,” he said. “Just feel better soon.”
I gave my address to the driver, settling gratefully into the back seat. And felt better already.
As we pulled away from the curb I turned to see my benefactor climbing into the next cab. I don’t think he heard what I said.
Blood was beginning to drip across the marble tile. What can I say?
After a trip to Sicily with a short stop in Rome, I had made it without incident from my hotel to Rome Airport FCO Fiumicino well ahead of 7 AM for a 9:10 AM flight home. I found my way to the ITA Baggage Drop area to trade my one small bag for a boarding pass. That was when the drama began.
Reaching for my passport, and briefly forgetting about my cheap-tissue-paper skin — i.e., thinner than even the better quality tissue paper — I brushed the pocket of my backpack and came up with a half-inch gash across the top of my left hand.
If someone is trying to find a vein below my paper-thin skin when a blood test is required, good luck. Veins are nowhere to be found. But in the Baggage Drop area of Fiumicino Aeroporto, one small scrape and you’d think Vesuvius had just erupted in A-negative.
I had managed to grab some tissues from my pocket as the gusher began. But keeping it at bay required pressing one tissue, with my right hand, onto the back of my left. This left no available hand for doing stuff, and stuff needed to be done. I quickly attempted to wipe up the mess on the floor with the remaining tissues, deploying one foot before I ran out of appendages.
A horde of uniformed ITA people descended from nowhere. I had triggered the “Little Old Lady” alarm. I heard, for not the first of a zillion times in recent years, “Are you traveling alone?”
Ohforheavenssakes! At what age is it required that “Little Old Ladies” be accompanied by a “Keeper?” Admittedly, if I’d had a “Keeper” he or she would have produced the passport and avoided the whole drama. But still. The wound, which drew attention to my amply-wrinkled face, had triggered the “Little Old Lady Traveling Alone” alarm. The horde had taken over.
“No problem! No problem!” they were saying, guiding me onward and leaving the insufficiently wiped mess on the tile. Who cleans the floors at your houses? I wanted to ask. But I didn’t. I watched politely as someone picked up my tiny carry-on (the under-seat size) and backpack and guided me onward, away from the unsightly splatters.
I had a Band-Aid in my backpack. All I needed was that one Band-Aid and I’d be on my way. I desperately wanted to shout, had anyone been listening, Could someone please just help me get the #$%&+ Band-Aid so I can have two hands again!?! But I didn’t. I had been trying very hard to represent the Friendly American despite our current unfriendly administration.
One young helper agent disengaged himself from the horde to take over my small bags — and me in the bargain. I began to understand I had an invisible tattoo, “LOL-TA.”
“The chair is coming,” said the polite young man. “Wait here.”
I was apparently to be wheeled off, through Passport Control and the two-mile maze I had negotiated on the trip through FCO Fiumicino from which I was now returning. It had been an altogether pleasant walk — but of course, I’d managed not to injure myself on that leg of the journey.
While waiting, I engineered a raised left-hand maneuver long enough to reach into my backpack and retrieve a Band-Aid. Problem solved. I was anxious to be on my way, but once a wheelchair-designate, always a wheelchair-designate. I waited, obediently. However, I noted with some relief watching other wheelchairs come and go, that Rome Fiumicino features motorized chairs complete with a platform in the back for the driver.
My only previous airport wheelchair experience was once when I was re-routed through Seattle with 20 minutes to make a connection. I had played the “LOL” card and requested a chair. It was operated by a frail woman in a hijab who whisked me through a complicated series of passages and elevators to deliver me at the gate with several minutes to spare — and an overwhelming sense of guilt.
At least this trip would be guilt-free. Eventually, it began via a motorized chair with a pleasant-looking young woman who maneuvered me into the seat with my backpack in my lap and the other bag on the platform beside her. We were through Passport Control in a matter of minutes and headed to the A — E Gates.
“I take you to your gate,” said my driver as we sped along. “E-23.”
“Umm, if you don’t mind,” I said, “could we go to the ITA lounge?” This seemed a reasonable request. We were now navigating the swirling mobs of E Gates, and I knew, indeed, that the lounge was within range. As I had tried in vain to explain ever since the wound incident, I had done this entire business just fine, on foot, “LOL-TA,” when headed in the other direction.
The lounge had great appeal. I had access to it thanks to having declared myself years ago too old to fly overseas any way except Business Class. The lounge, I knew, had breakfast choices and hot coffee (I now also know to ask for “latte con café” to avoid the 80-octane Italian drink) and bathrooms, not necessarily in that order of importance. I still had over an hour before boarding, and E-23 was without any of those niceties.
“I think E-23,” said my friendly driver.
What to do? We were speeding towards E-23, and it seemed my destiny. At E-23 we came to a stop. I was gingerly assisted in getting off the fancy wheelchair and handed my tiny bag plus my backpack. “Arrivederci,” we said.
When my driver was safely out of sight, I picked up my bags and made my way through the cosmetics area of a mid-gate shopping center toward the lounge about an eighth of a mile distant. (As I mentioned, I’d done this before.) There I found breakfast, coffee, bathrooms, and easy chairs; what’s not to love about airport lounges? It was now 8 AM. Boarding was advertised as beginning at 8:10.
I was enjoying my latte con café in an easy chair when a smiling young man in an ITA Assistant uniform appeared at my side. He was piloting a motorized wheelchair.
“I will take you to your gate,” he said. Maybe a tracking device had been attached to my forehead, just below the “Little Old Lady-TravelingAlone” tag?
By now I had learned not to argue with management. Feeling a little sheepish, after having zipped from breakfast bar to coffee to bathroom to easy chair and to and fro for an hour or so in front of all these other able-bodied people, I handed over my bags and arranged myself primly upon the wheelchair.
This report comes to you from Seat 3A, ITA Flight AZ 640 Rome to San Francisco, where I continue to be treated with the exquisite care accorded a “LOL-TA.”
Wildfires seen from the train window near Kamloops (Author photo)
First there is the breathtaking beauty. Seeing the Canadian Rockies for the first time was recently my extraordinary good fortune.
But knowing a place we walked one day was almost gone the next? It’s too much to wrap the brain around. That historic lodge? Singed but saved. The majestic pines and firs and cypress trees? Thousands of acres now reduced to ashes. Those lakeside docks and benches where we propped our feet in wonder? Gone.
Beauvert Lake at Jasper Park Lodge before the fire reached this spot (Sandy Strong photo)
And the elk, the deer, the mountain goats, the bears and chipmunks and ground squirrels? Safely, we hope, somewhere else; we don’t know. Parks Canada people, who may have one of the most extensive and multi-faceted training programs known to humankind, have ways of guiding wildlife toward safer areas as fires approach; Mother Nature has also embedded her own safety and advance-warning systems in animal populations that are often smarter than their human counterparts anyway.
Peaceful grazing in an area now burned away (Author photo)
Mountain scenery, as we traveled by train across British Columbia and Alberta, had been clouded by what we knew to be nearby forest fires (above.) 2023 was Canada’s worst wildfire season in history, with upwards of 70,000 square miles lost. In Alberta, where this essay was written, the wildfire season started later in 2024 than the year before, “but there are more blazes currently that are considered out of control. As of Aug 1, 2023, only two wildfires were out of control, but Alberta currently has 57.”
It’s that “out of control” business that feels the scariest.
I spent two peaceful days and nights at the Jasper Park Lodge, leaving with a group of fellow Rocky Mountaineer tourists on a bright Monday morning. At breakfast on Wednesday we learned that the lodge had been evacuated late Monday night. By Thursday we were hearing that JPL had been lost (thankfully erroneous news;) then, that it had been mostly saved, although swaths of the nearby town of Jasper were burned to the ground.
Our cabin at Jasper Park Lodge, reportedly still standing (Author photo)
The force of Mother Nature is astonishing to behold. Watching the ferocity of rapids and waterfalls is awe-inspiring; wildfires are in a category unto themselves.
Wildfires are started by lighting strikes — making rainstorms a mixed blessing when fires are already raging — by human misadventures, and (sorry, climate deniers) by the warming planet. One of the most interesting factoids uncovered while fact-checking this essay is that embers can smolder beneath the ground throughout a not-so-cold winter and then pop up again (“Zombie fires”)to ignite a new blaze a season or two later.
It is mind-boggling to find oneself just ahead of blazing forests, to see skies aglow from nearby fires and particles of ash everywhere — while on an innocently planned vacation. It brings a new understanding to the effects of last year’s Canadian wildfires that were felt across the U.S. as far south as Washington DC and experienced even on my San Francisco balcony. And a new emphasis to the old adage:
Since the next one will be in 2045, and — at 90 — I have no plans to be around then, I guess I’ll finish life on this planet without having witnessed this extraordinary phenomenon. Which is OK. I’ll watch it on TV, in real time, and that’ll be special.
But being there would be spectacular. It’s the business of how to separate the special from the spectacular, and make rational choices between the two, that gets harder as we humanoids get older.
This is my recent lesson in making such a choice.
It started with an invitation to join a trip arranged by a favorite San Francisco-based organization, the Commonwealth Club , for which I’ve long been (and still am) a volunteer. Small group, brief time, expensive but not break-the-bank expensive, and this would be a once-in-a lifetime event. Another Club member was even looking for a roommate so I’d avoid the single-supplement cost.
The trip was to a south Texas ranch directly in the path of the solar eclipse, pick-up in Dallas on Sunday afternoon, return to DFW Tuesday morning. As just about anyone in the country knows by now, the eclipse will cross the U.S. — its ‘path of totality’ extending from south Texas to Maine — on Monday. I paid the fee and called my travel agent.
Lesson one: Find out travel costs in advance.
SFO to Dallas, how hard could that be? Well, as it turned out the airlines thought about this eclipse, and its path of totality, long before the rest of us did, and adjusted their prices accordingly. Nonstop from SFO to DFW would be roughly an arm and a leg. I gave up flying on anything that stopped between home and destination about the time I turned 70. But after my fearless travel agent ran through the nonstop options and their prices we went quickly, nonstop, to Plan B: find something connecting through weird travel patterns and invoke the Little Old Lady privilege of being met by a wheelchair to make changes in unfamiliar airports.
The LOL wheelchair option is onerous to me. I mean. I walk three or four miles a day, San Francisco hills included, and despite the wrinkled and rumpled appearance validated by my ID I detest being treated as Old Person. But we do what we need to do. Fearless travel agent found flights to DFW through Chicago (Chicago? Yes) returning through Denver, on the same airline for which I had mileage to cover the costs.
This, of course, now made it ridiculous to try going from home to Texas ranch in one day, so I opted to book a hotel at DFW for Saturday night. More added cost, but at least the excursion is less stressful.
Photo by fellow Cloud Appreciation Society Member Bob Osborn
Lesson two: Look at the bigger picture. Seriously. Not just the trip but the peripheral costs, the time involved, other commitments, everything else.
I’d known all along that I had a long-planned trip to the east coast in March. But the eclipse is in April! I’ve traveled for ages to different sites in consecutive months. I’ve been known to take back-to-back trips, often a weekend visit with friends followed by a longer trip just a few days later for a board meeting downstate.
But I’ve also never been 90 before. At some point, the body would like a little time to readjust from timezone changes, crowded airports, strange cities and the stress of it all no matter how much fun it was. The bottom line here was that I got home from the (nonstop) flight, DC to SFO, late Sunday night and the flight out was scheduled for early morning on Saturday. The same week.
By Tuesday, dragging a little, I was scrambling to meet deadlines that had piled up during the east coast trip, and I was beginning to have second thoughts about the eclipse.
Lesson three: Remember that the world doesn’t stop while you’re on vacation.
There was a time — say, back in my 70s or 80s — when I could catch up with the commitments of daily life within a day or two. Something seems to have shifted with that. The brain moves quickly into story deadlines, but the body is still on east coast time and wants a nap. It’s possible to avoid major calamity — postpone stuff that’s not on hard deadline, cancel lunches with friends to gain a little time — but Vacation Recovery is simply not as instantaneous as it was in younger years.
By Wednesday, exhausted, I was having so many second thoughts they were adding up too fast to follow. I began looking at weather reports. Storms and thunderstorms in the south and southwest. A CNN reporter, doing a segment on the eclipse Wednesday night, mentioned weather effects and (I promise, you can’t make this stuff up) ended his piece with a throw-away comment, “Just don’t go to South Texas.”
That did it. Thursday at 3 AM I am wide awake, doing the debate thing in my head: Should I do this thing, or should I not? All that money. But maybe it won’t even be visible. What about stuff I’ve not yet done: cancel the newspapers (yes, I’m a print edition person;) water the plants, buy some bug spray, find the sun hat, confirm the flights, pack another suitcase forheavenssakes.
Lesson four: When you’ve lived this long you’re entitled to change your mind.
Thursday morning I began to think it through. Having no trip insurance — actually, as far as I know there’s no insurance that covers ‘changing your mind’ — I would lose a large chunk of dollars. But travel agent friend assured me she could get back all those United miles, and I still had time to cancel the Saturday night airport hotel.
And the tipping point: If I canceled out I would have four Secret Days. A Secret Day, something that increases in value with every birthday, is one in which everyone thinks you’re gone so you can leave the phone on answering machine and do whatever the heck you want.
I wimped out. Left the carry-on on the shelf where I’d stashed it on Monday, emailed the trip people, apologized to my erstwhile roommate, called the hotel, thanked the travel agent, began to fiddle around with some stories, like this one.
MEMORIES OF MARRAKESH AND ITS UNFORGETTABLE MEDINA
I never really learned my way around.
But my brief stay in the Medina — ancient center of mesmerizing Marrakesh — was a time apart. A chance to live where people have lived and died, worked, played, loved and shared their stories for centuries.
Our AirB&B, a dozen turns into the narrow passageways, was pure 21st century: a renovated traditional Moroccan riad with indoor courtyard, a few beautiful rooms on several levels (accessible by narrow stone stairs,) the courtyard open to the skies, all the 21st century comforts one could want.
Ground level sitting room off the courtyard
Looking upward from the courtyard at dusk
Second level bedroom
And just outside our doorway, life went on — as life has gone on in the Medina for centuries. Families are families, whatever the time or place.
Marrakesh is a marvel of a city. I’d never been to Morocco before.
I loved roaming the streets (with an invaluable local guide!) — visiting the Koutoubia Mosque, the gardens, the palace, the desert-like Palmeraie with its palm trees and camels a stone’s throw from upscale modern homes and golf clubs.
But coming home, back into the 11th century Medina, was the best.
I don’t want to believe it’s gone.
Since the earthquake that has claimed several thousand lives across this part of the country, and left much of the Medina in rubbles, we’ve heard from only one of the three friends we made on that brief visit. A merchant who emailed that he is “All right, thank you, sister!”
We’re praying for the others. And that somehow the people of Morocco will rebuild.
I hope so. I hope the ancient marketplaces will again coexist with renovated riads that might welcome tourists like me again. And those visitors might have a chance to climb up to the rooftop for sunset tea . . .
Relaxing on the rooftop
Another rooftop view at sunset
Looking down into the courtyard gardens & fountain from the rooftop at dusk
. . . and marvel at the 21st century beauty created in the very heart of this 11th century city.
My heart is with their hearts, those citizens of the Marrakesh Medina
(NB — Key illustrations for this article were clipped from a video of the aftermath of the crime cited herein, taken from a safe distance. They may not be photographically wonderful, but surely you will get the idea.)
If you plan to travel in Morocco, you might want to engage Take-No-Prisoners Leila and Mild Mannered Abdel, a matchless pair who steered my daughter Sandy and me through the perils (and many remarkable sites) of the country from Tangiers to Rabat to Marrakech.
Fearless guides in their customary, friendlier stances
Considering the fact that much of our time was spent wandering the centers of ancient towns, which feature impossibly narrow, twisty streets with racing motorcycles and plodding carts going both directions at once, not to mention bewildering thoroughfares with traffic circles but no discernible speed limits and few pedestrian crossings or other such niceties, this visitor needed a LOT of guidance and protection.
As far as I can tell, law and order in Morocco is a system unto itself. The unflappable Abdel steered our mini-van through perilous streets and around three-lane traffic circles in the absolute assurance of which lane belonged to him, though this seemed to be a decision in constant flux. I saw occasional policemen — those in Marrakech were old buddies of Abdel — but their primary occupation was to make random stops checking for expired licenses or other signs of malfeasance. Stop signs? Traffic lights? Why bother? (The king goes anywhere, anytime, anyhow he darned well pleases. We watched a few of his shiny Mercedes limos simply being warmed up by zooming up and down a wide avenue just outside of the palace.)
A quieter street; not the one near the palace
To cross a major thoroughfare (there are indeed occasional crossing lanes, but never mind) Leila simply put her head down, grabbed my hand, and plunged into the swiftly-moving traffic. It’s a sort of ongoing game of chicken between drivers and pedestrians; I am amazed by the limited number of dead bodies strewn in roadways.
In all other matters of justice (leave aside the fact that the king does whatever he darned well pleases) it seems to be a matter of swift settlement between evildoer and victim. This is possible, I believe because people don’t walk around with guns. In other words, you might beat up on one another, but you’re less likely to wind up dead — as would be the case in another country that shall remain nameless where anybody and everybody seems to be packing heat these days.
We got a first-hand glimpse of this one day in Casablanca. We were driving peacefully around the city when we passed a park filled with Moroccans of varying ages at rest or play. The latter group included a few young hooligans of a sort common to every country since time immemorial. They were amusing themselves by tossing rocks at passing cars.
They picked the wrong car. A resounding crack against our window startled us all and brought the minivan to an immediate slow-down. Before it had come to a full stop Leila was out the door and jogging toward the hooligans. They were a small group of small boys who appeared to be about 8 or 10 years old. Within moments, Leila had one of them by the shirt collar and was giving him the what-for. It was in Arabic, but what-for to young hooligans is the same in any language.
Leila delivering the opening lecture
Meanwhile, back at the van, Abdel had found a place to park. Leaving the motor running he came to our door, explained apologetically that our health and wellbeing was of his primary concern, but — with a shrug — what could he do about Leila . . . And with that he was off, walking purposefully across the park.
Abdel (left) on his way to join the discussion
The next thing we knew, mild-mannered Abdel was offering his own what-for. To make his point, he administered a whopping swat to the primary culprit. By now a crowd was gathering. Sandy and I, noting how seriously outnumbered Leila and Abdel were, briefly discussed what would happen if one of us were to climb into the driver’s seat of the van. Easy: certain death.
Abdel justice, witnessed by Leila
We learned later that among the adults who gathered around was no one admitting to the parentage of the hooligans. Had I been such, facing the wrath of Leila and Abdel I would not have admitted to it in a thousand years. Leila has rather strong opinions about hooliganism.
Gathering crowd hearing from Leila
With their points made, our two fearless guides walked back across the park to the van. It was apparently all the time they needed to calm down and return to the pleasant companions we had known before the rock hit the window. The evildoing amounted to one small but bothersome shattered spot in the window. Punishment was administered and the issue apparently settled, without bloodshed.
Now, if we could get Abdel and Leila to come to speak with the NRA . . .
SNAPSHOTS FROM AN INTRODUCTORY VISIT TO SPAIN AND MOROCCO
Seville B&B rooftop
There’s something about rooftops, where you can look out over the city and see it anew. Currently I’m seeing actual new cities (wonderful old cities new to me) on a trip to Spain & Morocco. The above came with a view of the cathedral shining benevolently upon us all.
Inside Rabat’s Medina
Later, in the narrow alleyways of Rabat’s centuries-old Medina, people went about their days. To the visitor, life doesn’t seem easy here . . .
Atop Hotel Riad Dar El Kebira in Rabat
but from the rooftop of our hotel in the center of the Medina one could only see beauty.
Marrakech souks
Rooftop of Olala B&B, Marrakech
While the rooftop of our B&B, a few dozen steps above, was calm and lovely as the muezzin intoned the call to prayer.
Sunset from a Seville rooftop
Maybe rooftops are just their own call to peace and serenity.
