Preface: This took place in December 1983. I had just turned 32.
Chapter 1
And the saints….
It started as a normal day, as normal as can be for a computer jock. I was lounging at my desk idly pondering the raindrops which glistened in the early morning light on the window. My feet were casually propped on my desk, which many would believe impossible because of the mass of printouts and pieces of computer hardware that permanently resided there. My fingertips were lightly poised on the keyboard resting in my lap. The whole posture was designed to convey the impression of work while providing the maximum rest potential.
McIntyre walked in, gazed at me, brightly said good morning and then quickly got around to hanging his terminal. While this was an usual happening I had no portent of the things to come.
Everything seemed quiet, too quiet perhaps, but in my field you take quiet when you can get it. Then the chief called my into his office. This was unusual. I could feel the blood vessels expanding as I entered his office. The company (that’s what we call the organization I work for) had a mission for me, he said. There was some danger involved, but he mentioned that danger was my middle name. (Actually I lied on my employment application, my real middle name was Joseph). I asked where he wanted me to go. The mention of danger brought to mind Chicago, Detroit or perhaps Indianapolis. He looked at me for a moment then said ” Tel Aviv, London and Paris”.
I flushed with pride… an overseas assignment. I knew my self-imposed hours of training had paid off. The late nights spent mastering every aspect of a complicated computer system was not wasted. The broad base of knowledge covering software, hardware, installation, VLSI design and graphics was finally paying off. I was radiating confidence when the chief remarked, ‘We would send anyone else, but you are the most expendable”. I asked how long I would have to get ready to leave. Two days was the response.
I was ready to leave. I did not allow the news of a bus bombing in Jerusalem upset me. I had too many other things on my mind. I tenderly watered the plants in the office, knowing that it was likely I would never see them again. It wasn’t a premonition of my impending doom, no it was the knowledge that I gave McIntyre the responsibility to look after them. A tear fell into the pot I was watering.
Chapter 2
go marching in …
The flight from New York to Tel Aviv is pretty boring, and long. As usual the in flight movie is painful. This trip it was Superman III, which I unfortunately chose to watch. Someone must have drugged me.
Ah, Tel Aviv…. to some a jewel set on the golden shores of the Mediterranean ocean. For me, the insides of the Tel Aviv Hilton. I’m met at the Ben Gurian airport by Hertzl Ivan, a young man whom I find standing outside of the airport holding a sign on which is written, Bob Wallace… Metheus. I quickly and analytically conclude that the probability of two companies named Metheus are remote and that this person must be looking for me.
Hertzl drives me to the hotel for which I am thankful, for I don’t feel up to a taxi drive with a Jewish driver. I check in to the hotel and quickly pass out for about an hour. Then a quick shower, clean clothes and a quiet dinner in a deserted hotel dining room. (for this I missed the company Christmas Party…).
Monday (Dec 12th) Hertzl picks me up and we drive through the city to Elpack’s offices. (Elpack is the name of the Israeli distributor). Looking at the city as we drive through it, I fail to understand why any one would fight over the city. Most of the buildings I see look as if a bomb would be an act of mercy for them. Arriving at Elpack I meet Nahum Tchernihovsky. I quickly ascertain that I have no idea of what they expect of me.
We sit down together in a small office with a tremendous view of an alley and they begin the meeting by informing me that the Lambda 750 has not arrived and ask me why not. I shrug my shoulders and with my palms turned up, reply “I should know?”. They then ask me to tell them about Metheus, what the company is, how it is organized, who is involved? I reply “I should know?”. I then realize that it is going to be a long day and begin by telling them what I can about the company and its plans. I then begin a series of technical talks on the system architecture, CAD tools and graphics software. By the end of the day I have a headache and a list of things that Elpack wants (see appendix A.)
Elpack has made it clear that they are happy that I am there but are displeased with the apparent poor coordination of events that resulted in the equipment not arriving on time. They express hope that the machine will arrive on Tuesday. The CAD show is scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Hertz tells me that they would also like to keep the equipment for a period of time after the show, to demonstrate it to prospects. I say nothing as this is the first I have heard of it.
On Tuesday morning I eat a light breakfast in the hotels buffet style restaurant. I amaze the workers with my prestidigitation, especially one young woman named Naomi. I meet Hertzl and Nahum on the third floor at the hospitality suite. Last night we decided that if the equipment hadn’t arrived we would bring a black board and some colored chalk with which I could demonstrate Metheus’ superior color graphics.
I note with some dismay that just down the hall from our room is two rooms that Daisy are set up in, Ah well, one advantage in not having our equipment is that the people who come in and stay to talk are serious. I spend most of the day at the black board explaining Metheus’ approach to CAD. Daisy is well presented at the show. The president of Daisy is there, and the demonstrations they are giving are well received. Each time I go by their room there is a crowd of at least fifteen people watching a demo. I noticed that Valid and Mentor/Apollo are also present at the show but nowhere near a strong as Daisy.
While I feel a great deal of pressure from the people at Elpack I am also sizing them up. I decide that they are technically competent and have a good number of connections in two major industries, the Israeli Aircraft Industry and Intel. Elpack continually tells me how important it is that they get a machine with 2.0 software as soon as possible. I promise that I will relay that to the home office.
Tuesday at 5 p.m. part of the equipment arrives. It is the monitor. Well at least now it looks as if we intended to show equipment at the show and the story we are giving the people coming in gains credence. (as I recall the story had something to do with the machine being carried out of Egypt, pursued by the Pharaoh’s army, and delayed at the Red Sea while waiting for the waters to part…).
I spend some time converting the monitor from 120 to 240 volts. Of course I brought every conceivable tool necessary for a traveling CAD show, including not one, not two… but three Phillips head screw drivers. Unfortunately the one tool I overlooked was the tool for pulling wires out of the plug connector that straps the monitor to 240 volts. I finally make do with two paperclips, some grunting and a prayer. I then tried to converge the monitor but couldn’t get it to work, I suspect that to converge it you need to have a sync signal.
The rest of the evening is spent writing instructions to Elpack for giving demonstrations and for packing the machine when they are done. (this was optimistically hoping that the machine would arrive. I would have prayed for its deliverance, but couldn’t decide which God I should pray to in this land.) Wednesday morning and another day at a black board. I can tell that everyone is very impressed with our monitor. I spend a long session talking to the people from IAI and Intel. There was also some interest from National Semiconductor. The Omega product was of interest to several people who stopped to talked (see appendix B.)
The system arrived a 5 p.m. I was pleased to see that the Israelis know how to ship a heavy package. They used a flatbed truck with a hydraulic crane on it to lift the computer. We managed to move the computer system (including palette) up to the third floor where I showed the Elpack personnel (Nahum) how to set up the system. I setup the system between 5 and 7. The only hitch occurred when I had to switch the tape drives power supply from 120 to 240, and realized that the instructions I had didn’t explain where it was done. A quick phone call to the states fixed that ( thanks to customer service…). I had everything ready to go and gave the system its smoke test. Surprise, everything worked. I think it may have had something to do with my decision to pray to God, Allah, Mohammad and Christ. I spend the rest of the evening loading on and testing the demonstration software that I brought with me. Elpack had arranged for IAI and Intel to return on Thursday for a real demonstration on the equipment.
Thursday, and I finally have a system to show. Except for a minor scare when we lost power in the room for a while, everything is working fine. I quickly realize how lucky I was not to have a system until today. It is a zoo. I did long demonstrations for IAI and for Intel. Both groups were made up of very diverse individuals and I was getting asked twenty different questions all at the same time. But their interest seemed genuine and the only competitor they mentioned was Daisy. The biggest area of concern they had was how we model electrical characteristics compared to Daisy.
I started to break down the system at 5 p.m. with Nahum taking notes on how to pack the system. We transported the system to Elpack and installed it at 8 p.m. I tutored Nahum on the system until 10. We also make plans on utilizing my remaining time here. They ask me to stay until late Sunday night. I want to see Jerusalem on Friday and relax on Saturday. Saturday is their shabbat (sabbath) and no one is allowed to work. Then the plan for Sunday is to make a video tape of a demonstration for them.
Friday I met my tour guide outside the hotel at 9a.m. While I wait for her entertain the passing motorists with magic tricks and card flourishes as they wait at a traffic signal. Naomi and I catch a bus into the center of Tel Aviv and there transfer to a sherrut. A sherrut is an eight passenger Mercedes that picks up any eight people and transports them to Jerusalem.
We find our way to the old city and spend the morning and early afternoon shopping in the Arab markets. The old city has to been seen to be believed. Urchins abound, running and playing in dirty passages and alleys. Venders barter for goods, grabbing your arm as you pass. There are Israeli soldiers patrolling with automatic rifles. We pass through a checkpoint where our bags are searched and pass through a tunnel to the Wailing Wall. It is inspiring. We pray at the wall and leave messages in the cracks. About 2 p.m. we leave the old city and Naomi introduces me to some regional cuisine. I’m not sure what I ate, I have discovered that when it comes to local food in strange countries it is sometimes wise not to ask. We then catch a bus back to Tel Aviv. I try not to think of bombed buses in Jerusalem.
When I get back to the hotel I call John Hughes and discover that while I have been changing my itinerary, he has also. I now am traveling from Tel Aviv to London, instead of Paris, and will visit Cirrus computers. Then from London I will travel to Paris to visit with Honeywell Bull. This means that I will not be able to stay in Tel Aviv on Sunday to make the video tape.
Saturday morning I try to call Hertzl and inform him of the change in my plans. He is not at home, so I first catch a taxi to the airport to see about converting my plane tickets. TWA’s offce is open and I go in. After much explaining, and listening to heated discussions in Hebrew, the TWA personnel say that they understand what I want to do and that there is no problem. Except that the computer was down and I would have to come back Sunday morning to rewrite the tickets. The cabby is waiting for me so I head back for Tel Aviv.
I spend the morning walking along the beach front. I pause at one spot and sit on a wall. As usual I have a deck of playing cards with me and am idly performing flourishes. Two young men and a women stop to watch so I give them a short performance. Before I know what is happening I have an audience of twenty people around me with my back to the ocean. I am totally unprepared to perform much magic but give it my best shot. I am finally aided in my escape by the first three spectators who offer to buy me a cup of coffee.
I learned that the intense interest in magic was probably caused by a television show on last night which featured a mentalist. At noon I reach Hertzl and tell him that under no circumstances would I be able to stay on Sunday. He accepts this as the inevitable and we arrange to meet after shabbat (after 5 p.m.) so I can answer Nahum’s questions.
Hertzl picks me up at 5:15 and we drive to Elpack. I work with Nahum setting up alias’s for him and answering questions. Hertzl manages to get a video tape machine and I have my first shot at stardom. Late that night I say my goodbyes to Hertzl and Nahum.
My last day in Israel. I say goodbye to Wael and promise to write. I check out of the hotel and catch a taxi to the airport (same Jewish/Polish cabby as the day before). Fortunately I have given myself plenty of time for we get caught in a traffic jam caused by airport security. We finally get through and I discover that even Israeli cabbies will barter.
I go upstairs to the TWA office and begin the whole explanation over again. They look at my old tickets, my new itinerary and begin talking in Hebrew all at once. It seems they can’t understand why I would want to fly from London to Paris, Paris to London, then London to New York, when there is a flight from Paris to New York. Since the itinerary was prepared at Metheus I can’t understand it either. We finally agree that I should fly from Paris to New York and this will mean that there won’t be any additional charge. They will just rewrite the tickets. Everything is peachy except that the computer is down and they can’t confirm my flight from Paris to New York. I figure what the hell and have them write the tickets. I will worry about the Paris to New York flight in London. Finally I clear airport security, who bless their hearts did not ask me to open any of my bags, and I am on my way to London.
Chapter 3
and the bombs bursting in air ….
The fact that a bomb was detonated by terrorists in London the day I arrived bothered me a little. The blast killed five people outside of Harrod’s, a large department store in London. I planned on doing some shopping there. I expected Heathrow Airport to be a military zone when I arrived. Normally I wouldn’t wish landing at Heathrow on my worst enemy. This time everything went smoothly, There was no hassles with security and I walked into the country without the least bit of bother.
I left the airport and caught a London cab for my hotel. The Gloucester hotel is right in London across the street from a tube station. I check in at around 4:30 and get cleaned up. I catch the Piccadilly line up to Piccadilly circle and do some window shopping. I do notice the large number of police on patrol. I walk up Regent street to Oxford street and cut down to Hyde Park. For a civilized country England is backwards with respect to consumers. All stores in London close up around 6 p.m. This makes it difficult for me to do any shopping. I walk back to the hotel and have a quiet dinner and then turn in.
I awake early and grab a light breakfast. I am supposed to visit Cirrus computers this morning. I am not quite sure what I am supposed to do there. But I will show the flag at least and see how they are doing with the porting of HILO-2 to our system. I catch the tube to Uxbridge, which luckily is on the Piccadilly line. The train trip consumes an hour. I call Cirrus when I arrive but no one is there. I leave a message on the answering machine and decide to see if I can find their offices.
Looking up the address in a phone book I set out. The first order of business is to find a policeman and ask directions. One thing about the London area is that the police are everywhere. I flag two constables down and ask if they know how to get to the address. They reply that they know where the street is but not the building.
Taking their directions I set off by foot. I walk…. and walk… and walk… and it starts to rain…. I find the street and walk the entire length of it not finding the company. I then look for a phone and call them back. This time I get an answer. The person I am planning to meet is not in yet (Simon Davidman) but the gentleman I talk to says that I am close to the company and gives me more directions. I set off again and walk…. and walk… and walk. Finally I find Brunel University. There in the middle of the University is Cirrus computers.
I find Simon waiting for me. It turns out that he has not received the telex telling him that I was coming. It seems that telex messages are fast from company to company but do not account for internal company mail. They are very happy to see me however and make me feel very welcome. They have just received their machine and have installed it over the telephone with Metheus. They do have one small problem. They no longer are displaying the color blue. I pull out my bag of tools and quickly discover that the problem is a loose connection at the board in the lambda. I button everything up and spend the morning talking to them about the porting of HILO-2.
They have not yet begun the job. Simon tells me that since HILO-2 is now written in C he doesn’t feel that there will be any problem. They are in the process of making some enhancements to the program however and wish to wait until they have these enhancements running on the VAX before beginning the port to the lambda. I stress that we need the port completed as soon as possible. I spend part of the morning teaching them about compiling on our machine and talking to the Vax using an rs232 line.
After lunch Simon demonstrates HILO-2 to me. It seems to me that they will not begin the port until around the second week in January. This is because the work they are doing with the VAX version of HILO-2 and with their vacation schedules over the holidays. I again stress that we need to know as soon as possible two things. One is if they encounter any problems with the port, and two is when they can give us a scheduled completion date.
Some other observations of Cirrus. They are a group of young people who seem not to have much experience with business. They do seem to have a good technical ability. They have an Apollo and a HP-9000 computer on site and have ported HILO-2 to those machines. They did not have any benchmark data from those machines. The only question that they had that I didn’t have an answer they liked was a question about protection of software on our machine. They were somewhat dismayed to learn that we didn’t use a signature register (that would hold an unique serial number) to tie software to a particular machine. They want to be able to install HILO-2 on a machine, linking that particular instance of HILO-2 to the instance of the machine.
My final feelings on the visit to Cirrus are that it was time well spent. I think we need to apply some pressure on Cirrus to keep them working towards our schedule. Cirrus’s task is only part of our problem however. Even with the port complete we will need to integrate our netlists to HILO-2 format. Simon gave me several copies of an interface guide he prepared. These should allow engineering to begin the interface task without the HILO-2 port completed.
Tuesday morning must mean G.E.C. I had called them yesterday from. Cirrus and discovered that they also had not received the telex saying that I was coming early. They had given me directions so I hopped on the Piccadilly line up to xxxxxxx and then rode it up to North Wembly.
From there it was just a 200 yard walk in a downpour. I drip dry waiting for Ben Jones to meet me in the lobby of the Hirst Research laboratories. Ben informs me that Dr. Prazic (who I was suppose to meet) is no longer with G.E.C. His replacement, Allison Carter is also unavailable today, she is in a meeting (she can’t get out of it because she is chairing it). So he tells me, I’m his for the day. We walk back to his offices where the Lambda is set up. They have done something to the system disk and can no longer boot the system. I suspect the clobbered something like the password file since one of their engineers was playing around as a super user.
I fortunately brought the spare disk out with me and take the most expedient solution and swap the disks (for customer service records… I swapped out serial #9594 and swapped in serial #10374), They two other hardware problems that ] couldn’t solve. One was a extremely bad waterfall effect on the monitor. This is something I noticed on just about all the European systems I worked on. The other problem was with the tape drive. We could not get a tape to load.
I spent part of the day giving demonstrations for a group of about 20 engineers and answering their questions. They were very concerned with being able to design CMOS on the system. They wanted documentation on changing technologies, CMOS ERC and DRC, and the design rule compiler. I showed them how they would change the phled files to use phled for CMOS layout.
Ben and I meet and go over some questions that Allison left (see appendix d) and then I’m off for a trip to Paris. Ben drives me to the tube station and I have an hours ride back to London. I frantically do some last minute Christmas shopping before Harrods closes and then grab an Italian dinner in a small Italian restaurant nearby. Then back to the hotel to pick up my luggage and off to Heathrow to catch a plane. (While here in London I also get confirmation on the Paris to New York flight.)
Chapter 4
… when you say computer say Bull
Paris has to be my favorite city in the world. Except, perhaps, when I am trying to drive from Roissy to a hotel in downtown Paris at night with an Avis map to guide me. I find Paris without difficulty. The Seine is a little harder, but eventually I find the river. Then I find the river again. And again. Finally I spot the hotel in the distance. Now it is just a matter of finding a road that goes to the hotel. Eventually I succeed in my quest, and at 11:30 p.m. check into the hotel Nikko. As I check in to the hotel, the desk clerk raises an eyebrow at me and says “We have received a few Telex’s concerning you, I’m glad to see that you have made it”. It seems that telexes from Elpack and Metheus were arriving at the hotel at the same time. (see appendix F)
The next morning I have breakfast in my room and decide what to do. With the luck that I have been having the people at Honeywell Bull probably aren’t expecting me. I have two options, one is to wait until after 8 a.m. and call for directions, but that will get me to the site sometime between 9 and 10 if I am lucky. The other is to drive out towards Versailles and try to find to town of Les Clayes. If successful I could then call Honeywell Bull and get further directions. I decide to take the devil may care approach and drive out on my own. I get into my car and head west. I have found driving in Paris to be somewhat exciting, especially if you are not quite sure of where you are going.
My general technique is to find one or two other cars that appear to be going in the general direction that you are and to follow them. I employ this technique at once. I had planned on taking the freeway out to Versailles, but as I approach the ramp to the freeway I see a mass of parked cars. I decide that I might as well take the back roads. The French have a unique way of posting road signs. Almost none are lit, I suppose that the average Frenchman does no driving when it is dark. Also, all the street signs are placed on the corners of buildings on the second floor of the building. This of course is not a hard and fast rule, sometimes there are no street signs. I was lucky though. Whenever I thought I was lost either a car would pull in front of me, giving me someone to follow, or a sign would appear mysteriously pointing me towards my destination.
I pass through Versailles, driving past the palace there, and then on a road to Bois Darcy, which was close to Les Clayes. Through Bois Darcy and then I see a fork in the road with one of the few signs posted. Unfortunately its the other lane of traffic that has the sign that says “Les Clayes … Center de Ville”. I have no way of changing lanes so I continue on. As I look for a place to turn around a spot a industrial looking complex ahead on the right. Getting closer I notice a small sign on the main building that says Honeywell Bull.
I figure that there is no way this could be the place I am looking for, but at least they might be able to direct me to the correct facility. I pull into the guard area, get out and attempt communication with the guards. I ask if they speak English. It was a silly question, from past experience I knew that in order to qualify as a guard in France, you must only speak French. I then mentioned M. Trichards name. This brought a welcomed response, the guard pointed at me and replied ‘Bob Wallace?”. Somehow I had driven right to the building, and they were expecting me. I thought that things were finally going right.
I am escorted to M. Trichards office where we meet and he offers me a cup of coffee. We exchange pleasantries and then M. Trichard gives me the good news. The system has not been delivered yet. It is still at the airport. Apparently there has been some damage to the machine and customs will not release it to the Bull people. He makes several phone calls and eventually arranges that we will drive to the airport after lunch to inspect the damage. We are unable to determine over the phone what package was damaged. I spend the morning talking to his engineers discussing what the plan to do with the Lambda.
They plan to develop their own CAD software on the Lambda. The scheme is to develop a distributed network running software on a Bull machine and a VAX, with these machines talking to Lambdas which would also be running CAD software. The plan is to use a VAX for software development, emulating the Lambda graphics with Omegas. We talk about the feasibility of this. I point out several difficulties with the approach. The C graphics have functionality that is not supported on the Omega. While most of the difficulties could be overcome it is not a simple task. I get the feeling that M. Trichard thought that the C graphics existed on the Omega.
After lunch in the company cafeteria we head for the airport. M. Trichard has arranged for a transport truck to move the equipment to the site. This is a precaution, hoping that the machine has not been damaged. We arrive at the airport and I examine the unit. They have removed the cardboard box, but have left the unit on the palette. The damage appears to be to the palette. One side of the palette (the section with foam padding) is missing. I can see no apparent damage to the machine itself. M. Trichard and I discuss the possibility of hidden damage to the machine and decide that since the only way to determine if other damage exists is to setup the system, we will transport the system back to the site.
On the way back to the site we stop to buy a European style electrical plug for the system. Returning to the car from the store, we discover that the car won’t start. It has been one of those trips. I get out of the car and look under the hood. The problem is obviously electrical so I begin with the battery. Sure enough, I discover a loose connection on the battery. I tighten it down and the car starts. M. Trichard is suitable impressed as I explain that its all covered in the Lambda 750’s warranty.
Returning to the site I install the system. I again face changing the jumper plug on the monitor without the right tools. Bull supplies me with a needle nose pliers and a paper clip. I convert the unit to European voltage and plug it in fora smoke test. Everything works. We take inventory and discover that the unit was shipped without and cad software. I tell M. Trichard that I might be able to copy that software off the G.E.C. disk tomorrow. We call it a night and I try to find my way back to Paris. Eventually returning to the hotel I decide to eat at the hotel. They have a Japanese restaurant there that looks good.
The next day I return to Bull and spend the day training their engineers. We cover the theory of graphics, interfacing to other machines, system administration including backups, and Unix. I am successful in installing the cad software off the G.E.C. disk. Late in the afternoon I give demonstrations on the CAD software. I also spend some time trying to create a new termcap entry for the dumb terminals that they use. They use a terminal called a DKU 7001. We spend about an hour slowly getting everything needed into the termcap entry. It is quite an experience, something I always wanted to do. I tell them this right before someone from another office walks in and asks if we need a termcap entry for a DKU 7001. I briefly give thought to life in a french prison, but decide that his life is not worth that sacrifice. He brings in a printout showing the termcap entry. (I had asked if anyone there had used Unix but had been told they hadn’t … ). The new termcap worked (see appendix D).
The final thing I do there is to go through a list of items that M. Tricard has. I verify the condition of everything on the list, showing them that the C compiler and C-graphics works, that Fortran is there and works, etc. He and I sign the document showing this status (see appendix E). After that we shake hands and I am. off back to my hotel.
Chapter 5
Homeward bound…
My Paris to New York flight is scheduled for a 12 noon departure. This will give me plenty of time to check out of the hotel and drive to the airport. I decide to take a scenic route through Paris, driving along the Seine, past Notre Dame then swinging north up to the peripheric highway then out towards Charles DeGaulle airport. I love Paris and regret that I don’t have more time to see it again.
I finally arrive at the airport and return the car. Boarding the airplane I am surprised to find it half empty. Not that I’m complaining. I think it is the first time I have been on a 747 that is this empty. I spend most of the long transAtlantic flight entertaining some passengers with legerdemain. We arrive in New York on time, and I am lulled into a false sense of security.
Welcome home…. the first thing I encounter on arrival is a very unfriendly customs agent. “Why were you out of the country?”. “Who do you work for?”. “Who?” “How do you spell that?”. “What do they do?”. “Whats in the box?” (to which I reply, “a winchester disk drive.”), “Whats its value?”, (I should know?), I finally clear customs, get my baggage checked back in and walk up to the boarding gate.
The first thing I notice, other that the mass of people milling around, is that there is not a plane at the gate. It seems that the plane is lost. But not to worry they announce. “We’re sorry, but it seems we have overbooked this flight, if there are any volunteers ….”. Things are looking bright.
The plane finally shows up, but they announce that do to mechanical problems with the boarding gate there will be a slight delay. Someone should show the agent at the counter a copy of Websters definition of slight. They finally board us onto the plane. I discover that my seat assignment is in the smoking section. The thought of flying to St. Louis in the rear of a smoked filled airplane is nauseating to me.
I find a steward and plead, beg and threaten, trying to get my seat changed. I really don’t believe that I will have much luck, especially considering that they overbooked the flight, but luck is with me today. There is a empty seat next to the window in non-smoking. Not only is it next to a window, it is also next to an attractive young woman, I take a running dive headlong over three rows of seats into the available one, and staring up at the woman from an awkward position ask if this seat is taken. She says no, and I brighten up. While we wait for the plane to take off we introduce our self’s. Her name is Ann. Things are looking good, when the captain comes on the speaker and announces that “due to mechanical difficulties” we will not be taking off for at least two hours. It is a good thing that they pass passengers through security screens… Ann and I deplane to try to find another flight out of New York. While we are standing in line at the ticket counter an announcement comes over the P.A. system requesting that we re-board the plane. I shrug my shoulders and be head back for the plane.
We finally are moving. It appears that we are being towed out onto the tarmac. We are sitting waiting when the captain comes on the speaker again and informs us that he finally has been told what the hold up is. It seems that someone thought that this plane was going to San Francisco, instead of St. Louis.
Therefore they put too much fuel on board. We would have to wait for them to bring out fuel trucks and remove the excess fuel. Someone passed by trying to get support for an hijacking.
We finally take off, only four hours late, As the wheels leave the ground the passengers break into applause. I spend the flight talking to Ann about art. She has a masters degree in art history and is working for House and Garden magazine in New York in the architecture department. We discuss the Michael Graves building and others. She is heading for Denver to have Christmas with her family. The time passes quickly and we finally touch down in St. Louis.
Figuring that there is no hurry getting out of the plane, being four hours late it is improbable that either of our connecting flights are still in St. Louis, we leisurely leave the plane. Only to discover that while her connection to Denver is long gone, my connection to Portland is just starting to board. A hasty goodbye and I’m on the next leg of my flight.
A crowded 727 lifts off from St. Louis headed for Portland. I had briefly considered spending a night in St. Louis, but last minute thoughts of Christmas with my family caused me to board the plane. By this time I’m very, very tired.
The flight from St. Louis is somewhat rough as we really get into the mid west weather. But it looks as if we will get to Portland, however late. But then the captain comes on the P.A. “Sorry to disturb you folks, but it looks as if this isn’t our day!”. By now he has our undivided attention. He goes on .. “We seem to be experiencing a two hundred mile per hour headwind, its 35 degrees below zero throughout Montana, and we don’t have enough fuel on board to even reach Spokane. I think we will try to land in Denver to refuel, so if you all could check to make sure that your seat belts are securely fastened low around your waists, and that all your loose items are securely stowed under the seats in front of you. Also, I realize that you hate to wake up your children, but if you would make sure that they are also securely belted in to their seats.”
Now the only thing that really alarmed me was the use of the word “try” in the phrase “try to land in Denver”. As we come in for a landing I think of Ann in St. Louis who was trying to get to Denver, The landing in Denver wasn’t too bad. It would have been better if you could have seen the ground at some point. We are refueled by a large furry spherical creature looking somewhat like the Michelan Man, who, although I couldn’t hear, from the puffs of condensation from his mouth was certainly swearing at us. We take off again and head for Portland. I figure that the only other thing that could happen would be having to land in Seattle instead of Portland.
So when they announce that we are making our approach to PDX I am amazed. As we come in I reflect on the number of planes I have been on and how often I have flown in bad weather. I think back to taking off from Boston’s Logan airport ten minutes before another airliner slid off the end of the runway. In all my flying I have never, ever felt the least bit ill. This may be the first time.
Afterwards they tell us that there were forty five mile per hour cross winds. The pilot brings us in with a perfect three point landing, one point at a time. While our applause leaving New York was significant, it comes no where near the applause we give the pilot.
It feels good to be in Portland, although I am not overly thrilled by the weather. Of course there are still things to go wrong. Since it is now five thirty A.M. and my flight was due in at eight thirty last night I am not to surprised that my ride is not there waiting for me. I walk down to wait for my baggage. I wait, and wait … and wait. We finally learn that they think our baggage is on the next plane due in from St. Louis. — this plane is about to land I decide to wait a bit longer. The bags finally arrive and I catch a taxi home, to spend Christmas Eve and day somewhat spaced out, but with my family.
Appendices
