The (Un)friendly Skies...

To get your mind, and mine, off our National Crisis, I thought I'd dredge up an old set of memories and put "pen to digital paper," sort of, to try and keep you entertained.  And you certainly need some of that, now don't you?  

To wit:  You may have noticed that our airlines have pretty much all shut down.  Good, I say.  Who needs 'em?  I don't.  I've had all the airplanes in my life I'm likely to need, and believe I can make a good case for others to simply avoid this form of transportation as well.    

Need to go someplace?  Drive.  Or, just stay home.  "Shelter in place," as the commie pinko weenies among us so proudly advise.  Otherwise, you just might subject yourselves to all sorts of maniacal transgressions.  Why am I so worked up about airlines?  Read on, fellow Patriot...   

I first started flying on business back in the early 1970's.  I was named international sales and marketing manager by a succession of medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers and I had to spread the word, all around the world.  And I did.

Of course, that involved hopping on a never-ending succession of airplanes to do it.  And I did.  Starting in about '73, I spent the next six years averaging a plane a day.  From my home base in St. Louis, I traveled everywhere.  I visited 49 states, 161 major American cities and 37 countries.  And that takes a lot of flying.

Don't know why I never made it to North Dakota.  Oh well...

In short, my entire existence consisted of hurtling across the sometimes unfriendly skies at 500 miles an hour in aluminum tubes filled with folks who needed to be someplace else.  However, those "folks" were most often business executives dressed in suits and ties.  And 25 year-old stewerardess-es in short skirts.  Not a bad thing at all...

But flying back then wasn't the same as flying is now.  Back then, all the planes were new, and so were the stewardess-es-es (what they were called before "me too").  The planes were all bright and shiny and clean.  The stews were all beautiful and friendly.  And being a friendly sort myself, I often engaged in friendly visitations of the 4th Kind with only the finest looking of those aforementioned friendly stews. 

As often as possible, I'm happy to say...

And the planes all took off half full.  Since this was pre-deregulation, the price of tickets was fixed by some bozo in a green eye shade in a basement somewhere in Washington, D.C.  Which, because they were high priced, posed a disincentive for all but bizz-types and the wealthy to fly.  Example:  it cost $405 in '73 dollars for a round-trip ticket from LAX to NYC back then.  That was more than 40 years ago.  And a round-trip ticket today costs...mucho less.

So we all had lots of choices as to where to sit.  And the seats were big and roomy and comfortable.  And clean.  There was plenty of seat room.  And leg room.  And stowage room.  You didn't like your seat?  You just got up and changed it.  Food?  The food was actually good.  Or, at least fairly good.  And plentiful.  Booze?  Often free, especially if it was offered up by one of those "friendly" stews.  And if the plane was late taking off?  Free booze.  Rough weather bouncing you around a bit?  Free booze.  Have to circle for awhile before landing?  Free booze.  

The beverage cart could solve most any problem.  

And if you flew the major airlines often, it paid to join one of their airport clubs, where oodles of free booze and food were always on tap.  You could stop in during layovers and get some food.  Or even lay down and take a nap.  In short, flying was considered a privilege by many.  And all my friends and family were jealous as Hell of my access to the world through frequent air travel.

I recall one particular week.  I had lunch on the Space Needle in Seattle on Monday, dinner at Caesars' Palace in Vegas on Tuesday, lunch at Winstead's in Kansas City on Wednesday (best hamburgers on Earth!), dinner at Pitty Pat's Porch in Atlanta on Thursday (best fried chicken on Earth!), and dinner again at Windows on the World at the Twin Towers in New York City Friday evening (most expensive dinner on Earth!).  Pretty average week, actually.

This was pre-frequent flyer miles, BTW.  Too bad.  Because I traveled more than 3 million miles in the air over that period.  Now THAT's frequent.  I recall one day when I took five separate flights during the course of a 24-hour day.  From Springfield, Illinois very, very early in the morning (5:10 a.m.), I flew to Chicago, then on to Hamilton, Ontario, where I put on an 8-hour seminar at their University Medical School.  

Later that day I took a flight back to Chicago, then on to Louisville, Kentucky, with a connection to my final destination of Lexington, later on than night.  I arrived there at 11:00 p.m.  

And oh yeah, we flew through a tornado on that last leg.  I thought that 737 just might turn into a 437.

Lots of free booze on that flight as well once things cleared up.  And I needed it.  I might have failed to mention that I'm afflicted with acrophobia, or the fear of heights.  And airplanes have a tendency to go, ummm, high.  As in, "up there."  

So even though I know that the fear of heights is an irrational fear, it's still a fear.  And just about the very worst thing I could experience is a 737 twisting all up in knots, jumping up and down in 100 foot increments, being flailed all side-to-side by a tornado, doing its best to come apart in flight.  There was a lady on that flight who actually tried to unlatch the front cabin door because she was so fearful we'd fly apart like a K-Mart watch.  I think she felt she'd be safer outside than in her seat.  And I sort of agreed with her.  She had to be restrained by the cabin attendants and was later arrested as we got off the flight.  Like I said, lots of free booze makes little problems like that one tend to go away.  

And friendly stews...

I recall another evening when I left LAX on my way to SFO late at night, prepping for my appointment in San Fran early the next a.m.  (This was during a time when the "Streets of San Francisco" was a TV show with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, and not a place piled high with used hypodermic needles and human excrement).  American put me on a 747.  It was EMPTY except for me.  Empty, as in nobody else on the plane!  There were 12 cabin attendants, the usual complement for a 747...and me.  Talk about short takeoffs!  Nearly straight up after only about a 2,500 foot roll out.

Talk about excellent service!  A 12 : 1 stew to patron ratio is a really good ratio... 

Now?  Don't ask.  Airplanes today are very much like "blivets."  What's a blivet, you might ask?  Back in Missouri we used to define a "blivet" as two pounds of sh*t in a one pound bag.  Airplanes today are so jammed full of fare-paying travelers that seat room is a long-ago luxury.  You may recall the kerfuffle reported a couple of weeks back between two passengers, one in the next to last seat, and one in the very last, where the seat back is permanently in the fixed and full upright and locked position.  She put her seat back down, and he pounded on it, with his fist, HARD, for 20 minutes.  All recorded on her cell phone.  And viral on YouTube.  And the cabin stew threatened the lady in the seat in front - the one being assaulted - with arrest if she didn't stop videotaping the incident.  Whaaaaaaaat?  We're now officially in Bizzarro World!

So I decided quite awhile back that I'd taken my last flight.  I decided quite awhile back that fighting my way to an airport, and then fighting to find a parking spot, and then fighting to get through the tech inspections, and fighting to keep from being felt up by TSA's in the interest of "national security," and then fighting to insert my 6' 1," 215 pound frame into a 5' 0" seat, was more than enough.  I decided I'd been everywhere I needed to go, if flying there proved necessary in order to visit.

In other words, I'm voting with my feet.  I hereafter choose not to participate.

Anywhere I need to go my car will take me.  And it is clean, and comfortable, and always ready for me to go anywhere I choose.  No reservations, no airport hassles, no cancelled flights.  No pissed off TSA agents grabbing my family jewels.  And no sitting next to some smelly, 400 pound rando dude with a "comfort" chicken in his lap.  And no coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing and thin cabin air and dirty seats and drop-down tables and overpriced, dry, stale sandwiches, and foul-tempered, 70+ year-old "cabin attendants."  

And now, and perhaps forever, since we've been afflicted with the Chinese Wuhan Far Eastern Coronavirus, flying subjects one to a potential load of airborne germs that just might kill us.  

So I recognize that those of us who've yet to go everywhere they wish may still have to subject themselves to the rigors of air travel.  At least, once it opens back up.  The question I've asked myself, and the question they must also ask, is the getting there worth the hassle of the going there?

For me, the answer is a no!  No more.  Take a short road trip to a nearby national park.  Go to the beach.  Drive to the mountains.  Or, visit your favorite bar and have a cocktail.  Just don't go by a plane that's 110% full.  I sure won't.  You decide...