A Weekend Away

Well, here I am on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio, in a burb called Strongsville. Toss out any notion of healthy eating, as I have a six hour wait before my flight leaves and I had to check out of my room at noon.

I am therefore appropriately lounging over an American Sunday fully loaded eggs/bacon/potatoes/toast/pancake breakfast that I managed to procure from the accommodating Holiday Inn staff despite the fact that they initiated the lunch menu half an hour ago. This ridiculously caloric meal ought to get me through the day of travelling ahead, although I may have to be wary of its soporific effects especially between connecting flights.

My mood is reflective, as I came here for a memorial service for my Uncle Herman, my mom’s brother-in-law. As a child, there were two or three times a year that my mom’s whole family would get together in Cleveland, where she grew up, and my earliest memories are of the large joyous gatherings at Christmas, the men playing backgammon in one room, the woman engaged in boisterous conversation in another and, of course, the children, scurrying and squealing here, there and everywhere.

My mom grew up with five siblings. Herman was married to one of her sisters; he was German and hence dubbed, as I found out at the memorial, Herman the German. He was a soldier in WWII, and there are many wonderful photos of his time served, some taken in the trenches.

Herman was handsome and strongly built, a kind and gentle soul with a silly sense of humour. My father, being an only child, was not entirely comfortable with the big family thing, but he always enjoyed hangin’ with Herman, smokin’ on stogies that lasted forever, a scotch its constant companion. He was easy company.

One of the faded photos in our family album depicts a Christmas gathering in 1963, the adults in a semi circle of two rows seated on the floor and on the couch, children aged 3 months to 15 years filling out the crescent in front. I was 3 in that photo. Everyone is clearly celebratory.

With Herman’s passing, the two rows of adults in that family photo are now all departed from this life. With most of my first, second, and wee little third cousins reunited for this memorial, new family photos were taken. Needless to say, I am now one of those adults lining the back rows, and I think of 30 years from now, when those wee ones will be gathering to celebrate some occasion and they will inherit the adult seat assignment. To coin the Kurt Vonegut phrase, “And so it goes.”

Have now reached the airport, and while the business of flying is not what it used to be, the art of flying still holds a childlike wonderment in my view. Aboard the Holiday Inn shuttle bus to the airport, I was quite jazzed to discover find that out of a full busload of people, I was the only regular flyer. The rest of the bus was filled with Southwest pilots and flight crew, on their way to Las Vegas and then Denver.

Choosing a career lived up high in the sky seems to be quite a courageous choice of profession. As a consequence, being on a 30 minute shuttle trip with all that risk taking energy was pretty exciting and inspirational for me. In a word, they were an extroverted bunch.

One of the pilots was a Swiss woman, very tall, lithe, and blond, perhaps in her late 50s, who told me that 20 years ago she was a lab technician. Her co-pilot was a fellow from Baltimore who declared how much he enjoyed living in Nova Scotia for three years piloting rescue missions. One flight attendant was from Portland, Oregon, and the entire crew chimed in about how Portland is such a fabulous city...with all their travelling they should know!

After waiting the day through in bittersweet introspection, this was welcome company! I figured, how many chances will I ever get to sit in a confined space with pilots and air crew, I am going to ask all the questions I can think of!

In a place I did not expect to learn much, I come away reflective and inspired. Happy week!