Airport purgatory

Crowds flying home after Christmas, airline workforce decimated by a spike in Covid-19, and an airport unaccustomed to heavy snowfall and sub-freezing temperatures.  Stir these ingredients together, and you have an explanation for why I arrived back in Seattle over 51 hours later than originally scheduled.

My train ride from Seattle to Oxnard went off without a hitch.  I had an enjoyable couple of days with my brother and his wife at their coastal home in Oxnard.  We drove to his daughter's home in Glendale, about an hour to the south, where we celebrated a beautiful and merry Christmas.  

And then Sunday, December 26, arrived.  The date on which began the Great Snowfall of 2021 in the Pacific Northwest.  The date when more and more airline employees began phoning in ill from Covid-19.  The date and day of the week on which large numbers of holiday travelers were scheduled to travel from Los Angeles area airports -- including Burbank -- to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

My brother drove me -- innocent as a lamb -- to Burbank Airport at 10 a.m.  I always insist on arriving early for my flights, in this case for a flight scheduled to depart at 11:59 a.m.  Through the undeserved grace of Alaska Airlines, I had earlier been bumped up to First Class, and I was looking forward to a luxurious flight.  Almost immediately, however, we were advised of a half hour delay.  I thought nothing of it.  In holiday periods there is often a short delay because of the crowds.  

But one delay followed another.  

With all due respect, I should make you aware that Burbank airport has few forms of amusement for passengers awaiting flights.  Its Terminal B has one small, crowded café and a few stands selling snack food.  But finally, at about 3:30 p.m., we boarded our flight.  I settled into my First Class seat, and watched the pathetic coach class mobs file past me.  The doors were closed; we pushed back from the gate; the engines warmed up.

And continued warming up.  The crowds began squirming nervously.  Finally, after about a half hour on the tarmac, the pilot announced that Air Traffic Control in Seattle was refusing to authorize our departure from Burbank because Sea-Tac airport was closing for the day.  Disbelieving, we returned to the gate and deplaned.  A lengthy line formed at the gate desk.  Luckily, I was third in line.  They had an available seat on Tuesday -- was I interested?  I didn't try to negotiate for something better -- I grabbed it.  

I walked past the long line of my fellow passengers.  I recalled how long it had taken for the first three passengers to be processed.  But am I my brother's keeper?  I turned my thoughts to reserving two more nights at my Glendale motel.

After dropping me off, my brother had returned to Oxnard.  His daughter -- our hostess in Glendale -- was flying off with her daughter to Minneapolis.  It was just me and an inexpensive motel, situated in a mixed residential-commercial neighborhood.  The hours that followed while awaiting Tuesday's flight gave me a premonition of Purgatory -- not fun, not hellish, just long and gray and seemingly endless.  Starbucks got a lot of my food-consumption business, as did -- for one interesting dinner -- Carl's Jr. 

I returned to Burbank Airport on Tuesday at 11 a.m. -- my welcome at my motel having expired --  awaiting a flight at 1:40 p.m.  Same experience.  An additional series of delays, which -- as I posted with horror on Facebook -- seemed to be "déjà vu all over again."

We boarded, just as we had two days earlier.  We backed away from the gate.  We paused.  I held my breath.  Had I become a character out of "Groundhog Day"?  Another lengthy delay ensued, because Burbank's traffic control staff had gone home for the day, and we were being controlled from elsewhere.  But, in due time, we took off.

I was once more seated in First Class.  I drank wine and ate a small dish of salted nuts.  A complimentary cheese and fruit plate followed, with crackers and dark chocolates.  The flight was great, the service was impeccable, and the time passed swiftly.  I have no criticism of Alaska Airlines, which did everything possible for us passengers with the hand they'd been dealt.

We arrived in Seattle at about 8 p.m.  I had only to pick up my baggage and summon an Uber car. 

My baggage!  Well, some other time, folks.  This story has drifted on too long already.

Christmas carols

After a year's absence, thanks to Covid-19, it was a delight to be in the audience last night for "A Festival of Lessons & Carols," presented by the Northwest Boychoir, together with their teenage cousins, Vocalpoint! Seattle.

The performance was presented in St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, to an audience carefully checked for proof of vaccination and the wearing of masks.  

This Christmas festival is performed (in normal times) annually, and is based on a similar service offered by King's College, Cambridge.¹  The boys file in from the rear of the cathedral in total silence.  They halt in the aisle, half way to the front.  Suddenly the cathedral is filled with the sound of a solo boy soprano, singing the haunting first verse to "Once in Royal David's City."  With the beginning of the second verse, the entire ensemble joins in, as they continue filing forward and take their places facing the audience.

Covid-19 still lurks, and there were some changes.  The boys (and girls in Vocalpoint) were all masked.  Their voices still soared, but the masks seemed to blur slightly the enunciation of the lyrics.  (Or maybe my hearing is just going bad!).  Also, the audience/congregation was not invited to join in the singing of well-known carols, as in past years, in order to limit viral spreading.  

As the program notes reminded us, the choir members were unable to practice singing together until last summer -- a year and a half during which each singer practiced alone, sitting in his bedroom, singing to his computer.  The quality has held up remarkably well.

As in past years, after singing four carols, nine young lectors from the two choirs read nine "lessons" -- scripture readings from the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments.  After each reading, the choirs sang one carol, and then a second popular seasonal carol (where the audience would ordinarily have joined in the singing).

The performance ended with an ethereal singing of "O Holy Night," and then "Joy to the World" as a recessional.

Despite the masks, the singing was beautiful and moving.  My only complaint -- and it's very subjective -- is that I could have done without the piano accompaniment during many of the carols.  It was unusually loud, and I would have preferred to hear the carols sung a capella.  An insignificant complaint.  Welcome back to live performances, boys (and girls).

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¹A YouTube recording of their inspiration: Service at the chapel of King's College Cambridge

South for Christmas

One week from this moment (5:48 p.m. PST), I will find myself about half an hour east of Eugene, Oregon.  I'll be climbing eastward across the Cascade mountains, aiming for Chemult, Oregon, where I expect to arrive at 8:13 p.m.

Aw, shucks! You guessed it!  I'll be once more traveling south by rail, en route to Oxnard, California, on Amtrak's Coast Starlight.  This will be my third trip on the Coast Starlight during 2021 -- some sort of new single-year record for me.  

I've discussed this route before.  Most extensively, and longingly, perhaps, in November 2017 when I was headed to Oxnard for Thanksgiving.  I'll just repeat that it's a train ride that lasts 34 hours, with two lunches, one breakfast, and two dinners on board.  Because I'll be traveling in a roomette, all the meals come free, including one alcoholic drink (wine, beer, cocktail) (second and third alcoholic drinks cost $7.50 each, which isn't bad for a restaurant).  

The dinner menu has been upgraded since the last time I traveled Amtrak, and now consists of a choice of appetizers (e.g., lobster crab cake), main course (e.g., grilled Atlantic salmon), and dessert (e.g., flourless chocolate torte).  I emphasize meals, because they are the main events of the day aboard a train.  Against a background activity of watching scenery, reading, snoozing, or chatting with other travelers in the lounge car.

But enough (can there ever be enough?) about the train.  I will spend a couple of days with my brother and his wife in Oxnard, walking the beach (in December!), and then drive with them to their daughter's home in Glendale for Christmas.  I'll fly home from Burbank on December 26.

Last year, as you may remember, I "celebrated" Christmas alone, in Covid-induced isolation (other than my two recently-acquired cats, of course), "feasting" on a turkey TV dinner.  Like Scrooge eating alone in his office, right?  This Christmas, I join the entire Bob Cratchit family for convivial family festivities.  (Probably no dancing, however.)  I'm eagerly looking forward to it.

But first -- I have some gift wrapping to take care of.    

Christmas cards

It's become an almost annual tradition on this blog.  My supposed farewell to the sending of Christmas cards.  

It began in 2008, when I observed how few people sent cards anymore, and how I hated to be the last person to abandon the custom.  Jumping ahead to 2016, my annual farewell was entitled "Happy whatever."  In 2018, "Dying custom."  In 2018, "Moribund."  And last year, the deceptively upbeat, "Just like the ones I used to know."

Who needs this annual downer?

This year?  Yes, I cheerfully admit I'm sending Christmas cards.  To the same folks I sent cards to last year.  About twenty, all in all.  Far fewer than my card lists of a decade or so ago, but at least the list -- this year -- isn't shrinking in size.  I bought twenty cards a few days ago.  I've now written my Christmas greetings on all but two of them.  My handwriting's getting bad, so -- if my message on the card is longer than a couple of paragraphs, I type it as a letter and enclose it in the card.

I bought Christmas stamps -- no more sticking plain old American flags on my Christmas card envelopes.  Two kinds of stamps, because the post office seemed to be running out of them-- one type secular, and the other an image of a religious painting.  I worry briefly about which person should get which, a concern my mother never had.  I use some nice looking return address stickers sent to me by a worthy charity -- even though I ignored the request for a donation.  

Starting this year, whether I receive a card from someone will no longer be a factor in deciding whether that person is worthy to be on my list.  In fact, although I'm using last year's list this year, starting next year I may actually add persons from earlier lists -- folks dropped for the silly reason that they didn't send me a card.

Yes, this is the new me, the new "true Christmas spirit" me.  No more eye for an eye.  No more measuring out my meager favors with an eye-dropper, applying exacting standards of worthiness on friends and acquaintances based on their reciprocation.

I don't mean that everyone I know gets a card.  Not even everyone I'm fond of.  I'm not a masochist, eager to spend my pre-Christmas days bent over a desk, quill and ink at hand.  Nor, on the other hand, do I propose to use a program that automatically churns out electronic cards to every address in my address book.  Amazon Customer Service won't be startled to receive an electronic card from yours truly.

But my decision of who gets a card that year, and who doesn't, will be wholly subjective.  There will be no algorithm that I can provide you.  I want to return to a perhaps-imaginary day when people sent cards to people because those were people they just felt like wishing a ... well ... an especially Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all (card recipient or not) and a Happy New Year!  

On-campus living

Saturday, after dinner, I found myself walking in the dark across the University of Washington campus.  (During our current period of heavy rains, I've had to pick and choose the time of minimum rainfall each day to walk!)  My route took me past McMahon Hall -- the dormitory I lived in during my years of post-graduate work.  Although you might expect the dorm to be half-empty on a weekend evening, the window of virtually every room was lit up.  

It was a warm and cheerful sight, as I pushed my way along the dark and wet sidewalk, braving a slight drizzle.

And, as I've rhapsodized in earlier posts, I once more felt a strong nostalgia for my dormitory days.  And a bit sorry that -- although virtually everyone in my family has attended college -- I'm the only one, for various reasons, to have actually lived on campus.

Why?  One reason is that it's usually cheaper to find an off-campus apartment, or, if possible, to commute from home.  Another is that, at least until recently, few colleges have provided housing for married couples.  Also, many students, in my experience, come to college rather suspicious of association with the academic world -- at least full time association.  They are familiar with the high school routine of  putting in their hours at school each day, and then having the rest of the day free from school, free to enjoy on their own.  Even if many of those hours away from school have to be spent in studies and doing homework.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument in the minds of many students is a craving for independence: They're finally escaping the firm grip of their parents, and have no interest in accepting whatever other rules they feel may be imposed by university housing authorities.  

I found none of these arguments persuasive in my own case, but I understand how others feel.  And, in any event, my own university required all freshmen to live on campus.  Where, like the overwhelming majority of students at my school, I was happy to remain in the years that followed. 

Although I vaguely understand the desire to live off-campus, I think it's a mistake to decline that opportunity if you can afford to live in a dormitory.   You have an entire life after college to live privately in a house or apartment of your own, and on your own.  But you will find it difficult to ever find a group living experience again, once you leave the university.  And it's a valuable experience.

Although I hardly realized it at the time, I learned as much from the fellow students with whom I shared our common room and dining hall as I did from the lectures I attended and the books I read.  Of course, we shared our experiences with the courses and professors we had in common.  But even more important, I found myself sensing the enthusiasm that students with totally different interests from mine brought to their majors.  Many interests I have today came not from my own course work, but from rubbing shoulders with dorm mates.  (Specifically, just offhand, I think of a liking for certain forms of classical music, and an appreciation for the goals of formal landscape architecture.)

Learning comes not just from osmosis -- although formal course work sometimes consists primarily of that process.  Argument among students over issues as disparate as politics and religion, theories of history, the existence of space aliens, and the ideas advanced by various authors engaged in various forms of literature can force the student to reconsider his own opinions and assumptions -- reconsidering them in light of the success or failure of his own arguments.  The argumentative process can lead to ways of thinking that are far more permanent and sophisticated than does the mere studying for finals.

Dorms -- and by "dorms" I'm including throughout this essay fraternities and sororities and -- in my own undergraduate university -- a hybrid called "eating clubs" -- also provide purely social activities that strengthen the ties of friendship, friendships that encourage these more intellectual exchanges.  (I became a pretty fair bridge player and (I declare proudly) member of my house's bowling team!)

So, if any high school seniors bound for college next fall blunder upon this essay, let me repeat for emphasis:  If your individual situation, financial and otherwise, makes it at all possible for you to choose on-campus living -- DO IT!.  In whichever form most appeals to you.  Be one of those bright lights shining out into the darkness from McMahon Hall.

Years later, you'll be glad you did.

Leonardo da Vinci: Inventor

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.  They went out and happened to things.  
--Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) painted, of course, the Mona Lisa. He was one of the great painters of the late Italian Renaissance.  But he was also an inventor of incredible originality, often drawing up plans for devices that no one got around to implementing and trying out until centuries later.

And it is primarily his record as an inventor that is on display in a visiting exhibit now on display in Seattle's Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which I visited today.

Leonardo kept a record of his inventions primarily in long-hand written notes, notes illustrated by his own drawings, and notes kept on whatever scraps of paper happened to be at hand at the time.  After his death, these pages were later combined into bound volumes, called codices, which are now scattered among a number of major museums.  It was pages from these codices that are on exhibit at MOHAI.  His writings were impossible for me to read.  He not only wrote in a tiny script, in 16th century Italian, but, being left handed, he wrote backward from right to left.  

As far as I could tell from observation alone, he might as well have been writing in Saxon runes.

More impressive to the non-expert visitor than his codex pages are the physical exhibits.  Modern Italian craftsmen have built the devices that da Vinci envisioned in his notes.  Many of these are interactive exhibits, where we as museum attendees are invited to turn cranks, pull levers, and in these and other ways thus put into operation the devices ourselves.

Some of his inventions seem quite basic -- screw drives, various gear combinations. But many seem unbelievably prescient -- plans for helicopters, self-driven vehicles, air-supplied diving suits, and a large number of military weapons, weapons obviously designed to interest his patrons -- a steam-driven cannon, multiple-barrel rifle combinations, devices for scaling and breaching fortress walls, even a submarine.

One exhibit is a scale model of an ideal city, one that would avoid traffic congestion, disease, and pollution.  (I wasn't particularly impressed by the result, although I was impressed by Leonardo's desire to address these issues six hundred years ago.)

Leonardo da Vinci was obviously a genius, a more multi-faceted genius than we see often in history.  His energy and initiative were legendary.  It's sad that, at the end of his life, he considered himself a failure for not having achieved more with his many talents. 

Few of us would have felt so humble.

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Photo -- Three wheel vehicle powered by turning of hand crank.