I could easily spend a week in an airport terminal, chatting with travelers from around the world. You can find the most fascinating people from all walks of life in airports. Trust me on this.
A) Isabel… a customer service representative in baggage claim who has witnessed three deaths while on duty.
B) Lance… a bass guitarist who used to work for Shania Twain.
C) Nora… a sprite 26-year-old law student at the London School of Economics.
D) Chris… an airplane steward, and easily the most metrosexual man I have ever met.
And for reference, here are links to maps of the O’Hare and Newark Airport Terminals.
A) Isabel… a baggage claim worker who has personally witnessed three deaths in the airport: two were heart attacks (an elderly woman and an elderly man), but the latest was a 4-year-old girl who came to America for medical treatment. She died in her father’s arms in Terminal C. Isabel is Portuguese. With a name like Isabel, I suppose that should come as no surprise. We spoke about family, and she shared a wonderful story about her 5-year-old nephew, the product of a marriage between a Lebanese man and a Brazilian woman. As a result, this child speaks four languages fluently (Portuguese, Arabic, English, Spanish). Everyone tells her nephew he has beautiful eyes. One day he says, “Everyone tells me I’ve got beautiful eyes. Why not beautiful hair, a beautiful mouth, nose or ears?” One part of our conversation held implications for public policy. Isabel met her future husband at age 12, started dating him at 15, then married at 18. Her husband is three years older. Thus, her husband was 15 (vs. 12) when they met, 18 (vs. 15) when she was dating, and 21 (vs. 18) when they married. In many states, their relationship would have landed her husband in jail. She told me of a 20/20 episode she watched where an 18-year-old boy served three years in jail for sleeping with a 14-year-old girl. Prison didn’t sever their faith in one another. The father who pressed charges came to regret his actions, since immediately after the trial, he came to appreciate the depth of feeling these two lovers shared. Why was I at baggage claim? I needed to track and lock down a lost suitcase. Isabel came in clutch.
B) Lance… the bass guitarist who worked for Shania Twain and Mutt Lange. I met Lance, strangely enough, in the mens’ bathroom near Newark’s Gate C-103. The stalls were full when I entered so I joined a queue. As he exited his stall, he shook his head. ‘The last person in here smoked up a fury,’ he announced. ‘It smells like cigarette fumes. I can understand addiction… I used to be addicted myself, but when you get to the point of smoking in airport stalls…’ Rolling his eyes, he trailed off. I thought that’s where our interaction would end, but then I found myself next to his wife on the plane.
Lance is a bass guitarist who has worked for years in the music industry. Most of his work is done in the country music scene. He worked for eight months as Twain’s bass guitarist. He’s not on the album… it’s not unusual for the bassist on the album to be different than the bassist who tours. While on tour with Shania, he became close with Shania Twain’s future husband, Mutt Lange.
He was headed with his wife and a friend named Stephanie to London to work in a Christian service mission, teaching Christian spirituals set to country tunes. I volunteered to exchange seats with Stephanie so that their group could sit together during the seven hour flight. Lance sent a beer over my way. We exchanged contact info. I’ll be meeting up with him again later this week for an English ale at a nearby pub.
While we were going through customs in London, Lance was the first of us to notice that the crowd was separated into three ‘queues’: one for EU citizens, one for citizens from other countries, and one line filled only with what Lance called “dark skinned people”. It looked like old-school segregation to both of us. I asked a customs agent why there was a separate line for blacks. She explained that it was because citizenship documentation from Western, Eastern and Central Africa is often difficult to interpret, and if African travelers, immigrants, refugees and workers weren’t separated from the others, the line for citizens from first-world nations would be far slower. She concluded by saying, “That’s the theory.” Then she turned warily back to the next traveler.
C) Nora… a sprite law student at LSE. She sat directly beside me on the way to London. She was returning from a three-day shopping trip with her mother to New York City. She speaks four languages (German, English, French and Italian). Her mother is German (German & English) and her father is French. Her parents live in Paris, where she was raised. After college, Nora lived in Milan for several years and learned the Italian language there. Surprisingly, Nora didn’t enjoy Milan. She says she would have much rather lived in Rome. She disliked Milan’s (s)lavish devotion to the fashion industry. I asked her about her London experience. She recommended restaurants in the East End to me before checking out for her beauty sleep. Around 2am, I stepped over her to befriend the airplane stewards.
D) Chris… an airplane steward, and the most metrosexual man I’ve met. He was flirtatious to an extreme. He’s been working the US->UK plane routes for Continental Airlines for what he says feels like years. He enjoys the work and the lifestyle. The rest of what he told me is too outrageous to publish. So outrageous, in fact, that like many others who have shared their lives with me, I’ve chosen to voluntarily conceal his real name.
The stewards fed me well. They hooked me up with two extra portions of hearty lasagna. Good deal. I can’t wait for my next plane flight.
I met Hank and his daughter Sharon waiting for a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to Newark, NJ, in the first leg of my journey to London. They came to Chicago for the weekend to celebrate the wedding of Sharon’s niece. Sharon is an account manager at an advertising firm that works with pharmaceutical companies. Most of my time in the terminal I spent chatting to Sharon about the advertising industry and her aspirations for the future. Hank was hard-of-hearing and, as a consequence, harder to engage. But when Sharon and I reached a natural break, I turned to Hank by asking him about his feelings on the wedding (and the groom). Hank works as a surveyor for an architecture firm in upstate New York. Hank still has an incredibly youthful vigor about him. I had a hard time believing that he was, as he claimed, 84 years young. He had a terrific relationship with his daughter. Here’s Hank’s story.
Where were you born?
I was born in Middleton, NY. I grew up on a dairy farm with nine siblings–two brothers and seven sisters. My brothers and I would wake up every morning before dawn to milk the cows. The three of us would milk anywhere from 30 to 40 cows at one time. We never had a break, and it was harder in those days. Now there are all these fancy devices that milk the cows for you.
Did you drink the milk right from the cow?
Sure we did. We didn’t need to pasteurize milk straight from the udder. What we didn’t drink from the pail we’d put away in an icebox right away. That way, bacteria wouldn’t fester in it. My family would sell the milk to a creamery and that’s how we made our living.
Were all your childhood friends working on their family farms also?
Yes, remember, this was right before World War II. It wasn’t unusual for a family to farm back then. I was friends with all the boys in my neck of the woods. We used to play in the fields all kinds of games, but my favorite memories are of the icehouse at our farm. My dad built a shed insulated with sawdust to store ice through the summer, to cool the milk down right after each milking. My dad filled that ice house right up to the ceiling with ice. He would cut it out from the pond with an ice saw. Me and my pals used to break in whenever we could. We’d go skating with our shoes. [Laughs] Other families would call up my dad and say, “Where’s my boy?” He’d sigh then say, “I’ll go check the icehouse.” He tried to shutter it off, but no matter what he did, we always found a way back in. [Laughs] I miss that dairy farm. We sold it years ago, as family farms were going out of business.
So, what’s keeping you busy these days? Do you still work with the land?
I’ve worked for over sixty years as a surveyor. I go out and check the land for working connections to water, sewage, electricity and cable. I work with the city government to make sure the land is compliant with regulations, and I help the architects decide where to site their designs. Today, with GPS, my job is a whole lot easier. I just push a button and I get the latitude and longitude of my position, then I graph that into my program and I’ve got the answers I need for the architects much more quickly than I ever thought possible.
It sounds like you’re keeping pace with technology.
Oh yeah, I was the first on my block to have a pager. It was this big blocky thing, maybe 7 inches long, 3 inches thick and 3 inches wide. We used to wear it on our belts like an enormous buckle. I saw a good buddy of mine down the street. He’s significantly younger than me. He couldn’t believe I had a pager. [Laughs] Remember, this is before the days of text messaging and before cell phones were ubiquitous. You needed a pager if you wanted or needed to get messages wherever you were. I was a volunteer with our local volunteer fire department for fifty years. With the pager on, I could respond to fires faster.
How did you celebrate your fiftieth year as a firefighter?
We had a big party. All the guys came. They gave me a gold watch, engraved with a message. Here it is. [He slips the watch off his hand]
Can I take a picture of this, Hank? As something to remember you by?
[Laughs] Sure. Of course you can.
What I remember most of Hank is his wonderful, lighthearted sense of humor. At one point in our conversation, we started talking about look-alikes. I told Hank about DR’s sighting of a doppelganger in Charlottesville. He told me about a couple look-alikes who appeared in his own life. His deep belly laugh was a pleasure to hear. Alas, even the warmest conversations come to an end. As the boarding call for our flight was announced over the PA system, Hank excused himself for a trip to the mens’ room. We parted ways with a handshake and a smile. While he was away, I turned back to the conversation with Sharon. I was one of the last to board, but when I did, Sharon and Hank greeted me warmly from their seats one row in front of me. By an odd coincidence, they were seated adjacent to Heather, whom I’ll write about in my next post.
I met Melvin in the security line at the Columbus International Airport. Dressed in baggy shorts and a fisherman’s hat, he lumbered toward the metal detector at a relaxed pace. He carried two bags with him — one on wheels, another in his hand.
DC: ‘Greetings, sir. So, where are you headed?’
He was headed to Las Vegas for a few days to participate in slot and poker tournaments.
DC: ‘Oh, really? Have you been there before? What kind of stakes do you play for?’
A few times. He plays in slot and poker tournaments at all kinds of stakes. ‘It just depends on the game’, he explains. His favorite games, it appears, are played on slot machines.
DC: ‘Have you cashed out a few times?’
ML: Sometimes. (Or, in his own words, ‘You lose more than you win’. )
DC: ‘Are you retired?’
ML: ‘Yes, I am. I’ve been retired for years now.’
DC: ‘Where did you work before retirement?’
ML: ‘Lucent Technologies’
DC: ‘As a researcher?’
Here, Melvin hesitated. Did I hit a nerve?
ML: ‘No… I… Well, I worked with chemicals.’
The name “Melvin Lowman” is a pseudonym. Melvin is only one of the tens of thousands of retired gamblers who return week after week, year after year, to the City of Las Vegas to play slot machines–mechanical devices that are scientifically engineered to be as addictive as crack/cocaine.
I was in Las Vegas last year. No memory of that trip is more vivid than my departure from the plane. When you visit Hawaii, as you exit the plane, you’re greeted by dancers bearing the gift of a lei. In contrast, when you disembark from a plane in Las Vegas, you’re greeted by a chorus of ringing slot machines, manned by a volunteer army of retirees.
Melvin may have worked for Lucent as a chemical engineer or as a janitor — I’ll never know. When we reached the luggage carousel, he jumped ahead of me as I wrangled with my luggage. He realized soon after that he was less ready than I, and he stepped backward. I offered to let him pass ahead, but he insisted that we go back to our original order. I saw him again on the other side. I wished him well on his voyage, and good luck at the slot machines.