RRN Online Volume 386

October 25 '03

Volume 386

Plane Rides Half The Fun Is Getting There

If I count Formerly ValuJet the two trips to Champaign earlier this year and toss in the four flights into Milwaukee recently, then I've flown a total of six trips and rode on twenty-four different aircraft for the year. My flights to Champaign were on small propeller-driven aircraft and were loud and rather rough. Into Milwaukee, I flew on AirTran and Delta Airlines. Both airlines used jets that were larger, quieter, and smoother riding than the prop-jobs.

Given my druthers, I'd choose AirTran over Delta based upon my experiences, though considering AirTran is the new name for the fire and crash prone ValuJet Airline, perhaps I should reconsider. Yet, AirTran's aircraft were newer than were those of Delta, and the flights were less crowded. Both airlines now use electronic tickets so passengers can use the Internet to print a boarding pass or else wait until "check-in" for a seat assignment. Passengers receive roughly the same services once aboard and are usually treated to a small package of pretzels and a beverage.

Three of my flights to Milwaukee required me to be in Memphis (ninety miles from Pontotoc) around five a.m., which meant that I arose at 2:00 a.m. to make the 6:00 a.m. flight. While I had no trouble dozing on those early morning flights, I didn't get much sleep what with all the interruptions, including announcements over the intercom and flight attendants rolling a beverage cart down the aisle.

All of the flights out of Memphis routed me first to Atlanta before sending me to my final destination in Milwaukee, and most of them involved a one-hour layover in Atlanta. In all but one instance the time was sufficient for me to get off at one concourse, walk a half-mile to the underground train, ride to a different concourse, then walk another half-mile to my departure gate. However on one occasion, a Delta flight, I was the last person to board my connecting flight to Milwaukee and made it aboard with less than five minutes to spare.

My flights from Milwaukee back to Memphis also ran with connections in Atlanta, but I had a three-hour layover each time in Atlanta. Usually, I whiled away the hours working on expense reports or writing. I also found time to read all but a couple of chapters of "Mama's Boys," a book I had purchased from local author Buddy Russell back during the Bodock Festival in August. Buddy tells a pretty good story or at least he does for those of us who know something about growing up in the country when times were hard. Compared to Buddy Russell, I was a city boy, but I can relate to many of the experiences he describes.

I think, when I retire, I'd like to interview passengers at an airport. I'd like to know why so many people from all walks of life are found in an airport on any given day. There are old people, (yeah, some are actually older than me), children and infants, middle-aged business men and women, fat, skinny, ugly, pretty, tall, short, over-dressed, under dressed, tattooed and not tattooed, handicapped, rich and not so rich, whites and non-whites, as well as persons of numerous faiths other than mine. If there were any poor folks on any of my flights then I never spotted them; otherwise, it seemed each flight contained a random sample of our nation's population.

I have two fears when flying. Okay, that's a simplification, but there are two that I can share. I'm always afraid I'll have to sit next to or near a fretful baby or toddler, and I fear I'll have to share my seat with someone in an adjacent seat who is so large that they spill over into my space. I fared pretty well with the latter situation, but several of my flights involved a fretful infant within six feet of me.

On one of my flights to Atlanta from Milwaukee, my flirtation with a blonde at "check-in" netted me a seat in the first class section. Talk about plenty of legroom, I had it. Plus, I got a large bag of pretzels instead of the tiny packets they give to those in coach-class.

If SUPERVALU keeps flying me around the country, I'm going to have to stick my head inside the door of the restroom of a plane to see what's so captivating about it that ten percent of the passengers have to check it out once the plane is off the ground and the "fasten seatbelt" light is off. Based upon the number of in-flight restroom visitors I've seen, there's no way I can believe those folks couldn't have found a restroom to use while on the ground. Considering I usually have an aisle seat, it's no small wonder that I only had to get up one time to let someone out to get to the lavatory.

There is an annoying aspect to air travel, and it relates to carry-on items. Passengers were constantly reminded of the two-item limit and encouraged to store larger items in the overhead compartments and to place smaller items beneath the seat in front of them. The problem with storing items beneath the seat in front of you is it leaves no extra room for your feet.

On one of my flights, the overhead compartments were full, and one passenger could not find a place to store a bag that was too large to fit under a seat. A flight attendant was summoned for assistance. The flight attendant, in order to make room for the large bag, removed a smaller bag from the overhead compartment and asked if it belonged to anyone nearby. When no one spoke up the stewardess stated the bag would have to be removed from the plane if it was unclaimed. Finally, a man in the row behind me spoke up saying it belonged to him.

He objected to having to store the bag under the seat in front of him, telling the stewardess, "They could have checked their larger baggage, like the rest of us."

I was not unsympathetic to his plight for the bag, randomly chosen by the stewardess, might just as well have been my own. However, when traveling on someone else's aircraft, one must follow their rules.

Air travel is not all it's cracked up to be, as a great deal of one's time is consumed in getting to and from an airport, plus there is the inconvenience and delays created by connecting flights between destinations. There has to be a mileage scale or chart where it makes more sense to drive than to fly, unless the distance being traversed is greater than a given number of miles. Unfortunately, I don't have one of the charts and am pretty much at the mercy of the travel services of my company.

I hesitate to say that I'm through flying for this year, but I surely hope I am.

Wisconsin Oddities People, Places & Things

My last week of work in Wisconsin (supposedly) found me on somewhat familiar ground, in that all the stores in which I had to work were in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Why my company seems to delight in dropping a country boy in a big city for a week’s work is beyond me, but they do. Upon being told I had to make a fourth trip to Wisconsin to help re-tag five stores that were tagged the previous month, I requested being assigned to stores I had already visited. However, my request fell on deaf ears, and while the area was familiar, I had not previously been to any of the supermarkets.

In the event some readers are unfamiliar with tagging or re-tagging, I should explain that whenever an independent retail store or group of stores switches primary grocery wholesalers, a shelf tag or shelf label containing the retail price of a given item and an order code for that product must to affixed to the grocery shelf, in order for the supermarket to notify customers of the price of an item as well as purchase the item from the new supplier. The process of swapping out the old shelf labels with ones from the new supplier is called a "tagging." A "re-tagging" is simply any subsequent tagging following the initial one.

For the most part, I stand by my first week’s observation of the unfriendliness of the residents of Wisconsin. Again, I’m referring to shoppers and not those individuals working in the retail environment. In Mississippi, whenever I smile and speak to a passing shopper, my greeting is usually returned and almost never goes without an acknowledgement. I can probably count on one hand the number of customers who returned my friendly greeting during the three weeks of my work in Wisconsin and one week in northern Illinois.

It was also during my first week of work in Wisconsin that I mentioned not seeing the beautiful scenery I had heard about, but two weeks of my work involved traveling beyond the greater Milwaukee area, and I did indeed see more interesting landscapes. This past week, I enjoyed the colors of autumn as the maple trees revealed their resplendent hues of red and yellow.

Several years ago while in Minnesota, I noticed how odd it seemed to see dark green grass beneath trees bathed in the splendor of fall. I saw the same thing last week in Wisconsin. My brother, Fred (don’t call him Freddie), once explained that the grasses of the northern states are able to thrive on cooler temperatures than southern grasses, such as our Bermuda, zoysia, centipede, and St. Augustine. The Wisconsin countryside has already had below freezing temperatures, but the grasses of the suburbs are still a rich green.

Bubbler

I learned a new use for an old word this week. In the South we have water fountains or drinking fountains. We once had some of them labeled "White Only" or "Colored." Today, some of our water fountains are fancy and dispense refrigerated water, and others just supply a thirsty passerby with tap water. I’m not a "Phyllis Harper" (word enthusiast and contributor to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal), so I can’t readily explain why we call a device that dispenses water by spurting it upward, in order for the user to drink from it, a water fountain. And, I surely can’t explain why folks all over the state of Wisconsin call a water fountain a "bubbler." Thus, if you’re in Wisconsin, don’t ask where the water fountain is or you’ll likely be directed to the nearest park with a decorative fountain.

Whatever gene of linguistic oddity produced bubbler instead of water fountain, may also explain why the Wisconsin Department of Transportation chose to use the alphabet to "number" its county roadways. In traveling from Milwaukee to Madison and points south, I’ve seen road signs with nothing but a single letter such as N, X, or T. Last week I actually drove along JJ and A both on the same day. Yet, it was somewhat comforting to see U.S. Hwy. 45, though I had no idea U.S. Hwy.45 that roughly runs the length of Mississippi and into Tennessee made it as far as Milwaukee. My curiosity about Hwy. 45 led me to discover that the U.S. highway terminates near Lake Superior in Ontonagon, Michigan, or about two hundred seventy-five miles north of Milwaukee. Considering that Milwaukee is approximately one thousand miles from Mobile, AL, the southern end of Hwy. 45, which means the highway is about thirteen hundred miles long.

Another oddity I observed relates to towns and cities having an Indian name. I think it fair to say that Wisconsin has more than its share of these and sometime, when time permits, I may research the subject to a greater extent. Among the places I worked, Indian names were common and included, Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, Waukesha, and Muskego. Additionally, in traveling along Interstate routes, I encountered a great many other Indian names including, Oconomowoc, Mukwonago, Monona, and Pewaukee.

Of the folks I got to know during my last week in Wisconsin, one was a woman named Mary who lives in Green Bay. As I struggled to pry a stubborn shelf label from its mooring I asked for her assistance.

Glancing at the pocketknife I was using, she commented, "No wonder you’re not having any luck. Your knife doesn’t have a peak."

"A peak?" I questioned.

"Yeah, a peak," she repeated, pointing to the broken tip of my knife’s blade.

"You mean a point," I insisted. "Mountains have peaks. A knife doesn’t have a peak; it has a point."

She laughed but never agreed with me nor conceded, leaving me convinced that folks up north not only talk funny, but they use the wrong words, too.

Though I found a series of oddities in my visits to Wisconsin, I’m sure a northern visitor to my fair state, Mississippi, would discover our world equally odd. On second thought, that couldn't happen.

Bodock Beau A List, A Riddle & A Joke

Newspapers are not in short supply. Neither are the folks who read newspapers. If you've ever wondered why certain people read a certain newspaper, perhaps the following will help answer your question:

Newspapers are read because:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie chart format.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it.

6.The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from any country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. Ridge Rider News is read and enjoyed all over the country.

W W W W W W W W W W W W

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?

Answer: Pumpkin Pi

Submitted by H.P. Prewett, Jr.

W W W W W W W W W W W W

During a tour of Texas, the Pope took a couple of days off to visit the coast for some sightseeing. He was cruising along the beach in the Pope-Mobile when there was a frantic commotion just off shore. A helpless man, wearing a Democratic lapel pin, was struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 25-foot shark. As the Pope watched, horrified, a speedboat came racing up with three men wearing Republican lapel pins.

One quickly fired a harpoon into the sharks' side. The other two reached out and pulled the bleeding, semiconscious Democrat from the water. Then using long clubs, the three beat the shark to death and hauled it, too, into the boat.

Immediately, the Pope shouted and summoned them to the beach.

"I give you my blessing for your brave actions," he said. "I have been told about there being bad blood between Democrats and Republicans, but now I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true."

As the Pope drove off, the harpooner asked his buddies "Who was that?"

"It was the Pope", one replied. "He is in direct contact with God and has access to all of God's wisdom."

"Well," the harpooner said, "he may have access to God's wisdom, but he doesn't know jack about shark fishing. Is the bait holding up O.K., or do we need to get another one?"

Submitted by Ed Dandridge

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