Robert Gale Ongley

Month: July 2020

  • FLYING IN THE FACE OF LOGIC (PART TWO)

    Picking up where I left off in Part One, where I finally made it from Tucson to Philadelphia by a circuitous and somewhat improvised route during this perilous pandemic.

    I Came With Baggage

    Since I had missed my connecting flight to Philadelphia, my baggage preceded me. I went to the baggage office for Alaska and found it closed in the early afternoon. A sign on the door gave a toll-free number where I could follow up, but also said I could check at the ticket counter. I jotted down the number and headed for the ticket counter. All the airlines had representatives present except Alaska. I had them paged and no one responded. Their neighbors told me they had their last flights for the day and wouldn’t be back until the next day.

    No one answered at the toll-free number and no message was possible. I called again the following morning with the same result, but they initiated a call on their own which I missed. Their message was that they would deliver the baggage that day to the address our son had provided for them when he spoke to them himself previously. The delivery didn’t occur when promised and the following morning we needed to start our drive to the other end of the state for our family reunion. No answer and no message possible.

    Our first stop in my old stomping grounds was at the home of one of my best friends in this life. He passed a couple years ago, so his wife and daughter were going to include me in scattering some of his ashes in his hometown. When his wife heard my story about not having my suitcase, she gave me some of his unused clothing she was anxious to give away. What a godsend! Buying a few more items set me up for the remainder of my trip. My baggage hadn’t followed me across the state, but it was at our son’s place when we returned. I flew back to Arizona the next day.

    You Reap What You Sow

    We wonder sometimes if our actions that violate common sense and logic will come back to bite us in our hindsight. When the first flight brought me to those snow-capped peaks, I considered how this trip might go awry, but I realized I wouldn’t have seen this majestic sight had I not been assigned such a ridiculous route. I started taking notes on a paper pad I carry with me. I decided to truly see what this coast-to-coast journey ahead was going to show me. A rich feast was set on the table of the North American continent and I will share some morsels with you now.

    Crossing the Cascades revealed mountain villages nestled in the mountain range…northern plains with irrigated farmland…the Rockies with frozen lakes and mountain meadows…more plains across Nebraska, I think, where I start to see wind farms with their giant white blades generating power…our southeastward arc takes us over the Mississippi River…the scattered passengers are quiet as red-eye travelers…lots of windmills across several states…the sun sets and artificial lights begin to twinkle as twilight settles upon the land…big cities, maybe Pittsburgh and Baltimore, appear below before we finally touch down.

    Our son takes me around Philadelphia…the ghettos with masked poor folks on crowded streets…the tour of closed factories…down to Center City with scenic skyscrapers and the art museum where Rocky made his triumphant climb…peaceful protests with police hopefully guarding the peace…a Schuykill River walk…historic sights such as the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and Congress Hall…a bucolic evening nature walk in Tacony Creek Park near our son’s row house in North Philly.

    The drive across beautiful Pennsylvania with Amish Lancaster County…no toll roads for us…Appalachians…a golden eagle soaring east of State College…Allegheny Mountains…thick with trees and leaves looking like drooping faces…my little town charming our son…dear friends and loving family, too close to wear masks…classic “shiny diners” with their food that takes us back to a simpler time.

    The Final Tally

    A whirlwind tour of the country in a week. Looking danger in the eye, I found humanity in its many forms. The virus hasn’t shown its face, lurking unseen who knows where. My trip was challenging and rewarding all in all. I’m back to hunkering down, shooting for two symptom-free weeks. And of course, wishing the same to the cautionary wise, the risk-takers, the country folks and the street people everywhere.

    Rupinaro Church members social-distancing

  • FLYING IN THE FACE OF LOGIC (PART ONE)

    So we’re in the middle of a pandemic, right? My family has been following CDC guidelines quite well and we’re staying virus-free. One of the last things I’ve been wanting to do is a flight across the country. This is a story of how I did just that.

    Setting the Stage

    My mother’s side of our family, the Davenport’s in northwestern Pennsylvania, has been having reunions going back to about 1932. It’s a streak of 87 years that was in danger of being broken because of COVID-19. A few weeks ago they were given the green light by the powers that be to have their outside reunion. I also learned that one of my brothers, his daughter, a granddaughter of his and our son were going. My wife and I had planned a trip to Pennsylvania and Michigan this summer, but she needs to wait until her father’s nursing home allows visitors. It may not even happen this year, so we agreed I should go visit our son in Philadelphia and accompany him to the reunion. We hadn’t seen him for two years, so that played into our decision as well.

    I checked into flights and found a great deal to Philadelphia from Tucson. I wouldn’t need a rental car because I’d be riding with our son in a car he just bought. Everything was falling into place.

    Ignoring the Signs

    Case numbers have been spiking in Arizona and in other states. The airline would have me fly first to Seattle-Tacoma for a destination of Philadelphia. The state of Washington was one of the hardest hit in the nation in the early days. I didn’t check to see their current situation, but they had reached an unprecedented high for daily new cases just several days before my flight.

    I chose to fly Alaska Airlines because they had instituted a policy of blocking out the middle seats. The only problem was that when my return flight was booked, American was the airline I was given and they had no such policy. A two and a half-hour layover in Seattle and a nearly four hour layover in Phoenix on the return flight meant I would be spending about 12 hours on planes or in airports on the way and almost 11 hours on the way back. All that exposure to the public in closed quarters definitely caused me great concern, but I pressed on and consummated the reservation.

    The Long and Winding Maze

    I boarded the first plane at 6:45 AM and was pleased to find I was the only passenger in my row. We soon learned there was a mechanical issue with the cargo door and there would be a delay, presumably a short one. Numerous announcements followed and incrementally we reached a delay of approximately two hours, 15 minutes. Now it was obvious there would be a tight window for making my connecting flight.

    Despite my concern, I was easily distracted by the beauty of Washington’s Cascade Mountains in June as seen from above. Snow-capped peaks dotted the landscape, culminating in Mount Rainier with its massive glacier. Angle Lake also accented the area around the airport.

    I checked my gate number on my boarding pass before I deplaned, then hustled to that gate with almost 10 minutes to spare. There was no one at the gate! I checked with an American Airlines employee nearby and she accessed the system for me. The gate number had been changed, now leaving from another terminal. I had to take a train across the airport. On the way to that, I came across an Alaska customer service desk. They told me exactly how to get to the correct gate and said they would call ahead for me to let them know I was coming.

    I found my way to the train I needed. I had about five minutes to get to the gate. I ran when I reached the new terminal, weaving in and out of the travelers, panting into my mask. Breathless, I arrived at the gate only to be told the closed door to the plane could not be reopened. I headed back to the customer service counter and asked for the next flight out. “No more flights today,” the representative informed me. They offered to put me up in a hotel and get me on the next day’s flight, which would get me there almost 24 hours after my expected arrival. “I’ll miss a whole day with my son,” I complained. When a trip is planned for only seven days, every day is precious. “How about another airline?” I learned Alaska was my best option in this time of reduced flight schedules. I stood there in a sullen daze as the rep went about setting up a hotel and my flight reservation.

    Someone may have taken the reservation before she could get it booked. She called over a Supervisor and they worked for about 10 minutes before coming up with another option. I could fly to Baltimore and arrive that night. Our son might pick me up or I could take a train to Philadelphia. I took them up on that and reached Baltimore by about 11:00. Our son had worked out an arrangement with Alaska that they would pay for a hotel and rental car to get me to Philadelphia.

    Once in the Baltimore-Washington airport, I shuttled over to the off-site rental facility where I learned that all but one of the rental agencies would not rent on a one-way basis. The only one that would, Hertz, wanted to charge me $154 for less than 24 hours. I refused to pay such an exorbitant fee and rode back to the airport. Meanwhile, my phone was down to about 6% charge and I had forgotten my charge cable. This meant I couldn’t call hotels to send a shuttle to me. It was after midnight by that time and I was standing in the pickup area for hotel shuttles, not knowing if any would even be coming at that time of the night.

    Faith…you have to have faith. Suddenly, a shuttle from Doubletree arrived to pick up another man who had a reservation. I jumped aboard and was able to get a room on the spot. Momentum was on my side then. They provided a shuttle to the Amtrak station the next day. I had a nice train ride to Philadelphia, where our son picked me up.

    Philadelphia Railway Station on 30th Street

    (To be continued next time)