Up, Up and Away

 

Richard’s new guilty pleasure is Hulu’s “Inside Airport Lost and Found” which focuses on objects left behind.  When there is unclaimed luggage security is contacted to bring a dog to sniff the luggage.  The story unfold with an entire set unclaimed bags that had been setting in said destination for over ten minutes.  Ten minutes?

I recall returning home from my mission.  I don’t remember the airline – Continental I think.  I was the only sister missionary who was returning.  When we landed in Atlanta our connecting flight was just one gate over – but we had time to ride the shuttle and so got on it just for fun. The holdup happened in Denver as I recall.  I don’t remember the exact number of elders who were on the plane with me.  We had missed our connecting flight and had to be rescheduled or else the plane was running late or something.  One plane was overbooked.  They asked for volunteers to take another flight and were bribed with tickets for future plans.

I recall one elder wanting to take the opportunity and another counseling him not to since the tickets were arranged by the church and not the individual.  Turns out they wouldn’t have worked for said bribe anyway.

Meanwhile families had turned out to welcome back their missionaries.  This was back in 1986 when families could wait at the gates.  Mom said it appeared that the entire ward of someone had turned out.  When passengers started to disembark the crowd waited.  They waited and waited.  When the flight attendants followed by the pilots disembarked one of the family members who’d been anxiously waiting for his missionary turned to the crowd and implied that his son was some kind of jokester and we were all still aboard the plane.  But we were not. They had a LONG wait. 

My sister was hungry – everybody was hungry.  But Shelly was the only one willing to eat lentil soup which (at the time) was the least expensive thing on the menu.  People left.  How much longer would they have to wait around.  There were inquiries – where are the missionaries who should have arrived.  Some calls were made and some names were given.  I think there may have been six elders coming home – but I don’t know if all were by way of Salt Lake City.  Regardless, they had the names of whoever was supposed to arrive.  They had all the names of the elders but not the sister.  So of course my mom seemed to panic.  Where was I?

I arrived an hour and a half later with the number of missionaries headed to Utah.  My luggage didn’t seem to be on the carrousel so I told my family that we could go eat and just return for my luggage the next morning.  It was well over ten minutes.  Probably over twelve hours before I even called the airport to ask about the luggage. 

          I was asked about the color of my luggage.  Blue.  Like how many possible blue pieces could there be?  500?  1000.  I remember explaining to someone that I had come on Continental whatever number it was.  He said he remembered seeing it in the United terminal.  How?  What?  How could you possibly know those bags were mine out of the many pieces of luggage you much see each hour? but the I had initially been scheduled to fly United.  We all had.  But the elders’ luggage had been transferred to Continental.  Mine had remained with United which is why there wasn’t a record of me being on Continental. 

          I was grateful that I hadn’t stuck around to pick up my luggage with another 30 minute to how many hours later? I was impressed with the knowledge that this individual had regarding my luggage.  Perhaps it had been reported and that’s how he knew.  As I recall I did have to pick it up at the United unclaimed luggage and show proof that it was mine.  I hadn’t thought about that until just this very second.  Did the airport have dog security back then? 

Friendship and Promises Triggers

             As I have gone through my box of poems I am finding more triggered memories.  One of my poems tells about a friendship that I had encountered with an elderly woman who lived five doors down from my maternal grandparents.  They all lived in the same apartment building in San Francisco.  I guess she was lonely and my grandpa asked if I would write to her.  I still remember her first and last name – although I have no idea or remember how to spell her last name but do remember how to pronounce it.

There was one simple poem about promises and under the poem I’d written a note about different promises I had made and kept.  One promise was to a friend who I called “Annie”;  I told her that I would take her to the musical “Annie” if it was ever playing downtown or at the University. 

I don’t recall the exact year.  I was thinking it was in the late 70’s.  Annie won Tony awards in 1977 so it would have had to been several years later.  There was a national tour in 1981 and so perhaps that was the year my mom and I had gone downtown to purchase five tickets for the Broadway musical.  (I know it was before the release of the pathetic 1981 film production) We paid cash. I remember having counted the tickets at least twice while we were downtown.  Five.  We counted five both times.  After we returned home my mom took them out her purse and there were six!  I think we called Capitol Theatre to let them know of the error but because we had paid cash we were told there wasn’t a way for the extra ticket to be verified.  Okay.  Cool.  We invited my grandma to use the remaining ticket.  We watched from the balcony and I remember being fascinated by how the scenery got pulled onto the stage and pulled off again. All of us loved the play.  It was worth the amount I had spent.