Most
of the traveling I do by air takes me to smaller cities that can not be reached by a direct flight from Boston or Manchester, NH, my home base.
As a result, I spend a lot of travel time at Hub airports where I wait
to make connections for flights to my final destinations.
There
is not much to do during the time you wait for a connecting flight and I find it very hard to really do any work. A magazine or newspaper may
have been left in the waiting area and sometimes I pick them up to read. And, as much as I love to
read newspapers from places from around
the country, it is very rare that I actually buy one (though, I will wander
through newsstands looking at the headlines and picking some up to read
below the fold.)
Sometimes
I review notes of the latest story I am working on. As I sit there gnawing on the end of my pen, random new thoughts pass through my head and get cleared
for take-off on their
own connecting flights to oblivion. I scribble some quick notes as they lift off
hoping the disjointed and haphazard nature of them
may lead to a story. (And hoping I will be able to read them later.) Mostly,
though, I play games with the faces I see and on a recent extended
stopover in Baltimore that's all I ended up doing.
A
very tall man walked by. He easily closed in on seven feet. He wore a purple
suit, carried a small sports duffel bag with that much overused swoosh,
and he was black. The only thing I could think of was he was a basketball
player or a pimp. No, ---- on second glance he wasn't wearing one of those hats
with the feather ---- No, he couldn't have been a pimp. But, he definitely
was not in training as a jockey for the Preakness Stakes.
It's
funny the thoughts that go through your mind when you see people. We all
carry so many stereotypes that have gotten stuck in our overhead compartments or
been implanted in us over the years.
I'm not sure why we think that because a person is tall that he must be
a basketball player. If the person is black, it just reinforces the image.
Another
man passed by heading the opposite way. He was just average height and
about 45 years old. He wore a gray pinstriped suit, carried a briefcase
and had an ear-to-ear smile on his face that would have looked right at
home on Bozo. I immediately cast him in the role of business executive,
a salesman no less. He just closed a BIG business deal which called for
celebration and the uniform of the day included that smile.
The
tall black man probably trained race horses in Tennessee and the
man in the gray pinstriped suit, a baker from Boise, Idaho, who had come
to Baltimore for a dough convention. But, in spite of what the real truth
may be about these two gentlemen, I created my own stereotype role for
them to play for the short time they were a part of my life.
I
got up to stretch and walk around a bit. I saw a boy, maybe 10 years
old, walk up the jet way. He was the last passenger to come off a
plane and he walked with confidence and an assured gait -- That is
until an airline employee walked up to meet him at the gate.
The woman did not look anything like his mother, who he'd expected
to be there. In spite of her warm smile and friendly voice, he became more
than just a little apprehensive and went into a holding pattern as she approached him.
The
confident look on his face crash landed and his steady gait fell apart
fast. He asked the woman about his mother with a quivering voice and knocking
knees. He was so proud that he was able to travel alone and yet scared
to death to be doing so. When he finally saw his mother the apprehension
turned to relief and then to total embarrassment as his mother made her final
approach, running up to him to give him a big hug and kiss. (Right in front of all these strangers!)
There
are a lot of moments like that at airports and a lot of emotion changes
in the people you see. It makes this game I play with the faces fun and
frustrating. Just when I think I have someone pegged, their emotions (and
mine) get jostled by turbulence or the flight gets canceled.
All at once, I am not too sure about them.
I
wonder how other people who also play this game with the faces they see
peg me. I want to be thought of as an International Jewel Thief wearing
a blue pinstripe suit, with a trench coat under my arm, carrying a black
leather briefcase handcuffed to my wrist; my hair just slightly mussed
in a macho fashion statement. Also, sunglasses would be hanging
around my neck. And, lurking off in the corner of the newsstand eyeing me
though mirror sunglasses is
Interpol, just waiting for me to make my move.
Alas, with
my Chicago Cub shirt, camera bag hanging from my shoulder and carrying
my two well traveled, been-stuffed-once-too-many-in-the-over-head-bins
weekend bags, I probably seem more of a bewildered
and lost Tribune reporter. I do not even come close to the writer type
I am.
You know, sometimes
there aren't any thoughts that cross your mind that make sense enough to
write a column or create a story about to be told on NPR. On those days you
search, stretch
and pull for anything you can, including disjointed thoughts from Baltimore.
Today is one of those days.
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