Homeward bound

We went to Boston for the weekend to visit our daughter who goes to school there. This is what might be called a fool’s errand. Lots of old phrases have strange origins (beyond the pale?) but this one still seems plain as day, just like plain as day itself does.

Even though the weather in Boston was fine while we were there- cold but normal for this time of year, we were clearly still courting a weather disaster by trying to go there. So I wasn’t completely shocked to overhear on the Starbucks line this morning that all the flights in and out of Baltimore and Philadelphia had been canceled. Or cancelled as US Airways put it- apparently either spelling is permitted (note to self: that should apply to more words).

Well, to be accurate, and I am a math teacher after all, only Ronnie’s flight was cancelled. Mine was a “reaccommodation.”  Yes, instead of flying directly from Boston to Philadelphia at 4:30 and arriving at 6, I could fly to New York at 6, arriving at 7:30, then catch a 9:23 flight to Philadelphia, arriving at 10:30. The really is quite accommodating.

So I made a reservation on a train instead, after waiting on hold for 35 minutes to tell US Airways to stuff their reaccommodation and refund my money. Which is how I find myself now on the train, a bit outside of New York still, making my way back home.

Alright, enough of this cutesy stuff. I like traveling by train, but the only thing this particular train trip is less sucky than is all the other ways of trying to get home. The roads are a total mess, flights are canceled. What’s left? Will the train be late? Of course. But not as late as 10:30 as they said, or never, as it turned out, because that other flight ultimately got canceled too. If we get into Philly within a half hour of schedule I’ll be thrilled.

Of course I’ll still have to go to the airport tomorrow to get my car, but that seems a small price to pay. I wouldn’t care so much about missing a day of school, but I’m already going to be out the following day on a field trip and ironically it takes more work to miss a day and create a lesson plan from home than it does to just go to work.

This brings back wonderful memories of my day at the old Pittsburgh airport back in the early 80’s, when it was far from the modern (if underutilized) marvel it is today. I had a union meeting to attend that day, and because the participants were coming from various parts of the northeast, we would meet in a conference room at the Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I have no idea if that thing still exists and I don’t care.

We had our meeting, a few guys drove off or snuck onto flights before my 5:30 non-stop, and then the fog rolled it, thick as you’ve ever seen. Nothing arrived or left the airport for hours on end. This being a day trip, I had brought no change of clothes or anything to do beyond some work and a newspaper (this was a good 10 years before laptops or the Web had been developed). So what did I do? I put my briefcase into a storage locker (they had those then) and walked around the airport, stopping at every bar in the place, some more than once. Finally, around 9:30, it cleared a bit and planes started making their way in and out. The lines at the airline counters to re-book were immense. I was booked on US Air, which had most of the flights, so the line had a couple of hundred people in it, so I had no chance of getting onto any of the flights that were left there to go. My brainstorm was to call another airline that was known for overbooking and get a reservation. I gathered up my stuff (which involved airport security, because they had (redundantly, it seems to me) locked off the room where the lockers were) and then make sure I was one of the first to the empty gate, soon to be occupied by the last plane out to New York. 

I made it. We took off at 11:30 and I got home at 1-something. I had spent from 9:30 AM to 11:30 PM in the Pittsburgh airport. Gone but not forgotten.

Hopefully tonight will end earlier but at home as well.