Potus Bumpus

POTUS BUMPSUS
This is not a phrase from my faded memories of five years of Latin at the Roxbury Latin School in Boston. No. There we learned, as our first day’s assignment in Class VI (grade 7), that God would never bump us, because He was "Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…." Our Father in heaven.
This was another "father—of planet earth—POTUS", the President of the United States, aka Obama the Magnificent. Air traffic control apparently closes all airspace anywhere his celestial chariots move—whether Air Force One or a hovering helicopter. Sort of the secular equivalent of Ezekiel’s creatures with all those eyes above and below along with six sets of beating wings.
Make no mistake, I am for the utmost protection of our president at all times, whether he is attending the United Nations or just taking Michelle and those bouncy girls of his to dinner and a Broadway show.
Hearing of the delay while still at Logan airport I rush to the desk at Gate A6, worried about missing my flight out of Newark to Delhi. “No problem, Sir,” she says, “it’s only for half an hour—you should be fine.” Whew! I would hate to spend a whole day in Newark waiting for the next non-stop to India. If POTUS bumps us for only 30 minutes, I can handle it with aplomb—whatever that means.
At the gate I meet a clone of Ross Kuehne (my son-in-law’s brother)—same face and beard, same quirky voice, same twinkly smile. He scans my ticket and bids me have a nice flight.
A mere 14 hours later I am in New Delhi. Five naps to the good keep me in a cheerful humor. BUT….
In India there is a new line as we exit toward the baggage belt (as they term it)—a counter with two guys wearing surgical masks! They take a form we had filled out on the plane asking if we’d had shots (for H1N1 swine flu). Are you coughing? Are you sneezing? I squelch a quip rising to the surface about the Seven Dwarfs and me being Dopey, not Sneezy.
Not until later did Doug Johns ask if I had seen the body temperature readout? No, I hadn’t—you’re joking. “No, there was a digital readout of your body temperature taken by infra red, to see if you had a fever!” Wow! Not a bad idea, since everywhere this plague is scaring health officials.
Now Doug is a long time friend—a Presbyterian minister from Ontario. Daniel, the host from New Theological College, and I waited for an hour after his plane from Toronto had landed and were about to give up on him, when he sauntered out of baggage belt area with a big red bag. Seems like someone had taken his bag off the carousel. He waited until only those sad pieces no one wants had gone by him several times, before he wandered to the far end and saw his bag on the floor about to be hauled to Lost & Found.
Soon we were off in a taxi for the Southern Hotel—a nice clean place, where we bedded down at 1 AM just in time to be finally asleep when the wakeup call came from the front desk. We had no time to spare for the breakfast that came with our $55 tab. John Varghese whisked us off in the predawn smog toward the train northbound to Dehradun.
It’s always enlightening to read the complimentary newspaper that comes with one’s ticket on the Shatabdi Express—that’s the name of the high class train—old but way better than the cattle car-like trains for the average Indian.
News item. Several teenage Muslims boys are in court for “love jihad.” Their strategy is to profess love for a non-Muslim girl, get her to marry if she will just convert to Islam. (This is real easy, since all you have to do is sincerely profess that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.) At least it’s non-violent. It reminds me of “flirty fishing” that one Boston area cult practiced in the 1970s, where sweet young things would use their charms to lure guys to their cult meetings.
News Item #1 A woman in Sudan has refused to pay a stiff fine for wearing “indecent trousers” and no headscarf. Since it was her first offence she would suffer only 20 lashes in the public square. Later someone paid her fine, keeping her out of jail for a month’s sentence.
News Item #2. An editorial claims that the much-ballyhooed Muslim population explosion is overblown. The conventional wisdom is that in many societies Muslims have about a 2.8 birth rate as compared to non-Muslim birth rates of 1.9 in Europe and 2.0 in the USA. If true this would mean Europe would be taken over by Islam within 20 years and the USA within 50. This editorial claims that the birth rate in most Muslim nations is about 2.1 or 2.2, which results in no loss or gain to speak of. How does one know what to believe any more?
Hours later we get picked up by college staff in Dehra Dun. At the college now we settle in to our comparatively luxurious accommodations in Uncle George’s house—he is the founder of the college. I meet the dean to cover details of my teaching assignment. It’s not what I was expecting—as usual. But it’s no problem—an Introduction to Philosophy course I have taught over 400 times. 35 students.
I better get busy catching up on sleep. I need to have a fully–charged battery: POTUS MAXIMUS, c’est moi. Otherwise I’ll be bounced from the Flat Earth Society (of London notoriety) to the Flat Brain Society.