Blow Me Down

Well – “blow me down” – as Popeye used to say.

With a driver not showing up on Sunday at 2 pm to chauffeur me to Logan, things got off on a shaky note. Tim Chechowitz was the third frantic call I made and he drove my car home from the airport. Even with the delay I was there about the time I had planned on. Sunday traffic is great! And no ceilings fell on us as we sailed through the new tunnel in Boston. Big Dig becomes Big Bust. Scary.

But the nice lady helped me do my first touch-screen check-in. Sorta like Wal-Mart or Home Depot self-checkout only different. Through screening (they only took my water bottle thins time – I am a slow learner on these ever-changing regulations. Blow me down!

Flying in the Big Blow (50+ mile winds) made for a few bumps en route to Newark, but we landed safely enough even though a couple of runways were shut down due to high winds. 49 minute flight time. But Newark – is HUGE now. Three terminals with about 40 gates each. A neat air train takes me on a monorail to terminal C. Trains appear every 3 minutes and whisk you around a big loop.

But here an embarrassing episode intrudes. (I strongly suggest you skip to the next paragraph right now.) You see, showering just before I left Haverhill and gave my last bugs to Ellie, I found I had packed all my underwear in the BIG suitcase, which was downstairs. So after the shower I rummaged through my dressed to see if anything showed up. Aha! Yes – a pair of bikini briefs I hadn’t worn since I last felt like a teenager were tempting me from the back of the drawer. “OK,”says I ,“I can do that!” I’m feeling like old times now. Until they began to let me down. (I told you to skip this paragraph! It’ probably too late now, right?) Standing there waiting for the air train I notice the garment is kept from puddling about my feet only by the fact that I am wearing slacks. So I am discreetly trying to reach into pocket A to sneak it up a notch. Then pocket B and so on around the compass points on my pants. Try that three or four times with little success and you wished you had opened the big suitcase while you were still in the privacy of your own home! After waddling around the next terminal to find a men’s room I find a way to put myself properly together. Now I know why old men don’t wear those things if they have any sense….

13 hours on Boeing 777 is along time. And when they stack you up over Delhi for a while waiting for runways to clear, you know how far it is from NJ to Delhi: 7788 miles, more or less.

Then it hits you. What you forgot – because you wanted to forget – about India. Smoke. Smog. Smell. India is said to have the world’s cleanest people in the world’s dirtiest environment. Yep – still there – families sleeping on blankets in the terminals and sidewalks—homeless.

It’s 11 pm. Light traffic here is heavy traffic in Boston. You drive with your horn. In fact buses and lorries (that’s a big truck to you, McKenzie and Walker) have signs painted on the back—“Horn Please.” It remind me of geese in flight, each one honking away just to let the others know you’re coming up on the inside of the ever-changing flight pattern. Red lights? Simply means you look both ways to see if you can scoot through on breaks between cross traffic cars. Need to get ahead of the 3-wheel jitney spewing smoke at you? Just go down the wrong side of the traffic island for a block then squeeze back onto your side (left side) of the road. Here’s a scene not seen every day—a parade of white Brahmin cattle, some hitched to rickety carts. Along the curb side—some 50-60 of them. Cows have no lights. Neither do some of the cars and scooters beeping their way through the traffic. People walking on the streets; dodging vehicles of all types while crossing four to six lanes. Dogs. Old and young. Two or three on a scooter. It’s wild! Yet no one seems to get in trouble. I could really enjoy it driving here. “Those rules don’t apply to me….” “They’re just suggestions.”

Up at 5 a.m. to catch the train for Dehra Dun. Peaceful, those trains…. I got to finish and make notes on a library book: Islam for Western Minds by Henry Drummond. I’ll tell you about it—but not now. It’s time to rest a bit in the quiet guest house at New Theological College. I have my first class tonight.

You could blow me down with a feather.