On the plane and down again

Hello,

My plan was to embark more towards the end of the line because I do not necessarily see it as an advantage to get in the small space any sooner than I have to, however when they said all elite passengers could board, I got on. No one else was moving and it seemed that someone should get this going. We had to walk down stairs and then back up steps into the plane. How did that one person in a wheelchair manage? Since no one was ahead of me I thought I should check to make sure I made the right selection between the two choices. The attendant did not check my ticket so I asked, “Washington?”

“As soon as we are loaded we are leaving.” She replied.

Happily I sat by myself on this uneventful direct flight.

I was one of the first at the baggage pick up. It seems that many people no longer check a big but take quite a lot of carry on items. Bags started coming on the next carrousel and most people around me moved over there.

I asked a guy who had retrieved a bag where he had come from and with his reply of New York I moved back to the original spot. After waiting another 15 minutes the woman next to me said, “This is taking a long time.”

We then conversed about many things. I learned that she is a veterinarian who had just come back from the ISU Vet School. She works for the government and tracks contagious diseases in animals. She travels a lot with her job.

I talked about the fact that my daughter’s family had lived in Kenya for a time. I had visited and described how it felt to be almost the only white person around. “Now you know something about how we African-Americans feel sometimes. Usually there is a mix, but not always. I went to Tuskegee so I know something about seeing many black people and almost no whites.”

I thought it was too bad that we lived so far apart. I think we connected. It certainly made the half hour wait pass more quickly.

Paula