Easton from Above

Fyodor, who is thrilled for any excuse to go flying, sent out another invitation to go up two weeks later. I again expected that we would go up, make a few laps around the field, and return. That, or he had a destination in mind. Neither was the case, so I chose for us to go to Easton, Maryland. Why Easton? Well, guess who lived in the vicinity of Easton in his youth? Yes, Frederick Douglass. Harriet Bailey Ruth Cox Adams lived there, too. I absolutely had to get a look from the air.

Just he and I went up this time, in a slightly smaller plane. The quarters were quite tight, and neither of us are particularly large people. I have to admire his wife for not having a fit that her very hot husband was going to be sitting that close to another woman for several hours, completely unescorted. I suppose that says something about their marriage and maturity (I choose to ignore what it might say about my physical attributes). I'm used to less stable unions.

On the Tangier trip, I was just enjoying the ride. This time, I told him that I wanted him to talk me through what he did as the pilot. So, he showed me how to check out the plane before getting started, then how to turn on the plane and steer it to the runway. He told me what he would be doing when we took off, which is a fairly complicated series of tasks. Then, we took off and he flew outside of the restricted area, heading in a straight line for Easton.

Since it would have been illegal, he did not show me how to steer the plane. He also did not let me take over the controls. He did not let me fly the plane to the Chesapeake because I would have looked like a drunken driver as I didn't get used to the different ranges of motion involved in flying an aircraft. He didn't let me take the plane up to a higher cruising altitude, nor did he let me fly it across the bay. In short, he did not give me my first flying lesson at all. Not at all.

When we reached the far side of the Chesapeake, where he didn't take over the controls because he had piloted the plane the whole time, I could see the whole of Talbot County out of the window. We flew right over the location of Belle Vue, the plantation of Harriet Ruth's master, and over Covey's farm where Frederick Douglass fought back against becoming a brute. All below me lay the setting for the Narrative. This was better than any illustrative map!

This airfield was much larger than either the one at Tangier or the one where we originated; but it was also just a little too far from town to go walking. We had lunch there at the airport, then hopped back in the plane for our return.

Because of the direction of the wind, we had to take off in a direction that set us on a course with a tiny spot of restricted air space. Did you know that our illustrious vice-dick has a house in St. Michaels? Did you know that the air space directly above St. Michaels is restricted for that reason? I didn't. Now I do.

In making our loop around St. Michaels, I looked down. "Wow! That's a pretty big plantation house over there," I thought. Then, I noticed the layout of its grounds, its location on the river, and the drive that led to the road, which curved south toward Easton. "That's Wye House," I realized. That's where Douglass's master lived. Actually, that was where his master's master lived. That was where Harriet Bailey, Douglass's mother worked. That was where he learned that he was a slave. Right below me, 1,000 feet down.

On our trip back, once more, Fyodor did not let me take over the controls. I did not manage the craft with more confidence than I had earlier in the day, because I hadn't even been in control earlier in the day. I didn't figure out how to turn the plane more efficiently, hold it more steady, or aim it more consistently in the right direction until Fyodor had to take over because we were returning to the larger sphere of restricted air space. Nope. None of that. Because it would have been illegal.

Instead, to see what flying will be like, I'll just have to take lessons. Especially if I intend to boycott commercial airlines.

Tangier: Isle of Cats

Despite my loathing of commercial air flight, I love to fly. Commercial flight is not really flying, in my opinion. These Cessnas: that's flight! So, to return to my adventure in a much smaller, non-commercial airplane: When I told Fyodor that I love to fly and that he has to take me some time, he immediately invited me to go up with him and an anthropology professor. I thought that we would just take off, fly around for a bit, then land and that the whole venture would take an hour or so. Not at all. They had planned a whole day trip with the destination being one of those tiny bits of algae floating on the surface of the bay: Tangier Island.

I had heard of Tangier Island only once before, in a Patricia Cornwell novel (not one of her Kay Scarpetta mysteries), Isle of Dogs. When I read the book, which is funny as hell and contains a sub-plot of sorts that revolves around a speed trap on the island, I thought that Tangier would be an interesting place to visit, if I ever had the opportunity. Of course, I didn't think that I would ever have the opportunity. So, this was a lovely little venture that I would never have thought would happen.

The island itself may be a mile from end to end, at low tide. The runway dominates one side, and has so many weeds growing through its cracks that Fyodor at first couldn't find it and then thought that he was going to have to land on grass. The man in the "tower," which was actually a trailer, was half-deaf and didn't hear Fyodor's first three requests for permission to land. Then, he tried to sell us 24 pounds of softshell crabs.

We walked around the island for about an hour. The streets are all about the width of a golf cart, which is what everyone drives. That, or they drive a scooter of some sort. There are also a lot of cats, mostly pregnant females. Graveyards appear on every block, and have to have large slabs over the graves to keep the coffins from resurfacing, much like would in New Orleans, and to keep animals from digging them up, much like wolfstones in colonial New England.

The islanders clearly do a lot of tourist business, but it has a sort of a charming do-it-yourself quality to it, with golfcart island tours, and hand written recipes in the gift shops, and even a little historical museum that was closed for lunch. The Anthropology Professor, whom I will call Henry (after Indiana Jones's real name, which is supposed to be Henry Walton Jones), said that they have an excellent collection of Native American artifacts. I bought one of the three self-published histories of the island from the gift shop with the hand-written recipes. I sort of regret not buying the other two.

Then, we stopped at one of the ten seafood restaurants for a yummy late lunch of crab cakes and softshell crabs, and, being as we are all three academics, a discussion of the difference between Virginia crabbing laws and Maryland crabbing laws.

Our waitress did not look nor sound to be native to Tangier. Henry said, "You don't think that tan came from too much sun, do you?" Ever the anthropologist, he couldn't resist asking her where she was from. I had assumed that she was a college student on a summer job. As it turned out, she lived on the island. Her parents had adopted her at the age of ten from an orphanage in India.

Fyodor had to get the plane back to the airfield so a student could use it for his lesson that evening. Since we were starting off a bit later than expected, he had to file a new flight plan. I later learned that the next week (when I was out of town, so I didn't go along), he was slightly off schedule from his flight plan and couldn't land at his usual airfield. This particular field lies at the outer edge of a fairly restricted zone, so they get pretty strict about who flies in and out, and when they fly in and out. To even use this airfield, you have to have an FBI clearance.

Back on Tangier, we quickly learned that neither his nor Henry's cellular service reach the island. Our deaf attendant was off catching more soft-shells or something of that nature, so we were a bit stuck until I realized that -- hey! -- I have a cell phone! Would you believe that it actually worked way out there on that dry spot in the Chesapeake? So, we got home safe and sound, without a military escort.

*All photos taken by Clio Bluestocking.

Writer's Block

I had the weirdest writer's block recently. Writer's block is usually just an excuse not to write because writing is usually a chore, even when the words flow, and any little snag in the process can be a good excuse not to write.

This block was bigger than that. I'm not even sure that you could call it a "block." It was more of a "cramp." I couldn't bear to write on my blog, I couldn't bear to comment on other people's blogs, I couldn't bear to write in a journal, I couldn't bear to read, I couldn't even bear to talk. All of the words disappeared. They seem to be back now. I hope they stay.

Monuments

Yesterday my parents were in town. They weren't here to see me specifically. Being unrepentant band geeks from high school, they still play in several brass bands of the sort that you hear sounding off the oeuvre of John Philip Sousa (they named their dog, a basset hound, Sousa) at your average patriotic, country fair gatherings. One of these bands had traveled up here as a group to play in some sort of band festival, then they went down to Williamsburg and played at another festival there. Since I was out of town until Sunday (or, rather Monday morning), we didn't get to visit until they were on their way out yesterday.

We met at the Korean War Veterans Memorial, which I didn't know existed. Neither did the cab driver, who took me to the Vietnam memorial. "Not the Vietnam memorial," I told him, "the Korean memorial. "

"Yes," he said, pointing toward the Wall, "Korean war."

"No," I said, "Vietnam." This is the third cab driver that has known less about a city than I have. That is the second reason that I don't take cabs. The first is the cost. I can usually walk faster, but I was a bit lost yesterday, and in a bit of a hurry.

We eventually straightened the mess out. He still thinks the Wall is the Korean War memorial. My Human tried to explain to me that an African can't really be expected to know the difference between the two wars. I explained to him that a cab driver doesn't need to know the history that the two memorials represents, but he should know the location of two different landmarks. Am I an Ugly American for thinking that?

Anyway, I met with my parents and we shared horror stories about airlines. I won. Then we talked of Boudreaux, my nephew, and dogs. After about an hour or so, their tour bus took them and the other band geeks to the airport.

Since I was in the Mall for the first time in ages, I decided to take a look around before rushing off home to arrange for the deliver of my new couch. A migraine prevented me from truly sucking of the marrow of the experience, but I did see a few things that caught my eye.

Did you know that there is a World War I memorial? Officially, it is called the District of Columbia World War Memorial. You can find it tucked back amid a little grove of trees on one side of the reflecting pool between the Lincoln and Washington monuments.

The war itself is referred to only as "The World War" or "The Great War for Civilization," which indicates that the monument predates the second world war and the way that the memorialists interpreted that war. The memorial is shaped like a Greek gazebo, and looks like it might have been intended to act as a bandstand or some sort of platform for speakers or gatherings.

Around the base of the monument, you can find the names of the veterans of the war who lived in D.C. I remember when the Vietnam Memorial was first proposed, and the use of the names of the dead was considered bad form at the time. Yet, over here was an example of the names being used a full half century earlier. I've seen smaller memorials in village greens and courthouses all over the country, that use the names of the dead, too.

The World War II memorial is a bit less modest, but then it is the National World War II Memorial, not just the memorial for D.C. residents. Like many of the memorials around the reflecting pool, particularly the newer ones, the thing is a park unto itself. You don't just look at it. You walk into it, and immerse yourself. This method seems to force you to contemplate the events that it memorializes, except that you don't learn a thing about World War II and the men who fought it just from this memorial; or any others in D.C. for that matter.

The design of the World War II memorial is supposed to symbolize the war. Two large arches lie at the furthest points of an oval surrounded by smaller arches or double columns that each support iron wreaths and have the names of each state carved on their bases. In the middle of the oval is a spectacular series of fountains and pools that are supposed to represent the oceans. Or something like that. The tour guide on my parents' bus told them what everything in the monument is supposed to mean, and it is all very grand and patriotic. The overall effect, however, is perhaps not what the designers intended.

Upon approaching the monument, I could have sworn that I heard the strains of "Deutschland Uber Alles." Yes, the World War II monument, dedicated partially to the men who fought to overthrow fascism and defeat the Third Reich looks very much as if it were designed by Albert Speer. The wreaths, the fountains, the Greco-Roman motif: the whole thing looks like a set for "Triumph of the Will." That could not possibly be what the architects intended, but that is the result.

Then, again, perhaps they might have revealed a bit of an architectural Freudian slip. The effort to commemorate the "Good War" -- not even the veterans of the war, since they are not mentioned, but the war itself -- as something simply and gloriously patriotic conjured the same Roman-inspired images that seems to inspire most other western conceptions of glory and patriotism. This language of design was one in which Speer and Hitler also worked. So, perhaps what is going on here (and, to a much lesser extent, in the World War I design) is a not entirely subconscious expression of a will to conquer that lay behind the Roman empire, the Third Reich, and the American manifest destiny and imperialism that guides the people who work only blocks away from this very monument.

In light of this, the memorials to the less glorious wars that followed World War II more intriguing monuments. Although I did not go to see the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial yesterday (damn migraine), most Americans over the age of 35 are probably familiar with it's design, referred to most commonly as "The Wall." Before I first saw it in 1994, I had assumed from the pictures and descriptions that it was literally a wall of jet-black granite, shaped like a wedge, standing up on the ground. While it is wedge-shaped, the wedge cuts into the side of a hill, forming a sort of half-trench, and the granite lines the wall of this trench. The names of the dead are carved into the granite.

People still leave little tokens to their departed loved ones here, in a marked contrast to the World War I monument on the opposite side of the pool. Few World War I veterans (if any) still survive, and anyone who remembers them as living people are either dead themselves or don't remember the veterans' status as central to their identities. This made me think of a line in an Ani DiFranco song in which she says "100 years, and then your grave is not your own." I think of that song in old cemeteries, too. After about a century, who is alive to remember us and the things we did as something real and alive, not as history? In fifty or so years, the Vietnam memorial will be shrouded in trees, with tourists passing by saying "I wonder what that's all about."

I remember when this monument was proposed, back when I was a teenager. People objected to its references to death, and to the Asian architect. To assuage the critics, a set of statues of soldiers, representing three races, was added to the design. Similarly, the contributions of women to this war had been, as usual, overlooked. So, a memorial to the women was placed nearby, representing all of the traditional feminine virtues.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial architects obviously learned from this because it incorporates elements of the Vietnam memorial design and revision, but with a greater sense of cohesion. Like the Vietnam War memorial, the Korean War memorial has both a granite wall and statues of soldiers, includes images of all sorts of participants in the war, and indicates and some understanding of war as something other than glorious.

The wall in this memorial is made of grey stone and is, in fact, a wall standing on the ground to one side of the site. Instead of names, this wall contains a mural that seems to be carved with a laser and creates a neat little illusion of depth so that you seem to be looking at ghosts within the stone. The mural depicts figures from various branches of the military, different races including Koreans, women, different occupations, different religions, and even graves. In fact, it is perhaps the most inclusive image of any of these wars memorialized in this park.

The statues that stand in front of this wall are all male infantry, but of different races. They are dressed in combat and rain gear, and are placed in a V-formation. Each figure looks about, as if expecting attack at any moment. Some look fearful, some alert, some resolved. These are men at war.

An actual soldier from the war stood nearby, in full dress uniform. His wife held up a camera to take his picture in front of the statues. She teased him, "Do you recognize any of those guys?" He wasn't having any of that. He scanned them, pressed his lips together and posed. "No," he said.

Maybe my migraine was making me too grumpy, but I looked around the mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial and thought "this is a really butch place." I liked that these last two memorials to war were attempting to be more inclusive and somber in their memorialization of war. Still you could go to each of these monuments, as well as the ones to the presidents here and nearby, and walk away not knowing a damn thing about them.

Also, despite the efforts of the Vietnam Women's Memorial and some of the images in the Korean War memorial, this space around the reflecting pool is extremely masculine place. It is also an extremely warlike place. Washington, general in the War for Independence and president, has a monument rising at one end of the park. Lincoln, commander-in-chief in the Civil War sits at the other end. In between lie the memorials for four separate conflicts. Are only wars supposed to be commemorated here?

I thought of other events that happened here. Battles in civil wars of their own. I thought of the Bonus Army, of the Poor People's Campaign, and, mostly, of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. If we have memorials to wars, should we not also have memorials to reform movements, events that took place right on that spot where I was standing yesterday?

I went up onto the Lincoln memorial, up to where Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis stood to speak truth in the city of power. There, at the top of the second to last flight of step, you can find a panel on the ground. It says "I Have A Dream, Martin Luther King, Jr., March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." You might miss it if you aren't looking for it. Most people do.

(Cross-posted at Progressive Historians.)

*All photos taken by Clio Bluestocking on her new digital camera.

American Airlines is Number One!

Guess which finger I'm using to indicate that.

I've had a lovely two weeks of travel, with the exception of the actual travel itself. I will get the bitching out of the way before I get on to what a great experience I had at both the Berks and at the Landmarks of American Democracy workshop at the Fannie Lou Hamer Insititute in Jackson, Mississippi. I will bitch because I think American Airlines fully deserves the negative publicity. I'd say that they deserve to go out of business, but I pity their employees and don't want to wish them into unemployment (except those two patronizing ladies in Chicago O'Hare, but we will get to that).

On Thursday, June 12, I arrived for my 7:30 pm flight from here to Minneapolis, through Chicago. I should have arrived in Minneapolis at 11:30 pm. Should have. Instead, my flight did not leave here until 9:00 pm. Fortunately, the flight from Chicago to Minneapolis was also late. It did not leave until midnight. So, I didn't arrive in my dorm in Minneapolis until 2 am on Friday, so I spent most of the weekend slightly sleep deprived.

On Sunday, June 15, I woke at 5 am and was at the airport by 8 am for a 9:25 am flight. When did that flight actually leave the ground? Noon. When did my connecting flight from Chicago to Jackson leave? 11:30. Yes, I missed my connecting flight because the first flight did not get off the ground until 2 1/2 hours after it was scheduled.

It gets even better from there. The next available seat that would get me to Jackson -- via either Atlanta or Dallas -- was not until 1 pm the next day. That wasn't even on an American Airlines flight, but on Delta. In the entirety of Chicago O'Hare airport, there was not a single seat available headed in the general direction of Jackson until 24 hours later. None would actually get me into Jackson until nearly midnight on Monday night. I could have walked to Jackson faster.

Actually, I could have driven to Jackson faster, which is exactly what I decided to do. So, I went to the ticket agent for a refund on my flight to Jackson. I got in the shortest line. A tiny little bleached blond lady in an American Airlines dress and holding a clip board came up to me. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I am very angry right now," I said. "My flight was delayed over two hours, I can't get on another flight until tomorrow, but I have to be in Jackson tomorrow, so now I have to rent a car and drive down there all night, and I would just like a refund on my ticket."

Somewhere around "my flight was delayed," she interrupted me in the sort of voice that you use to talk to particularly slow two year olds: "You will have to stand in that line over there." She repeated that several times, in the same tone. She very nearly pushed me into the other line. Then she said, "the companies don't usually rent cars for one-way trips." Thank you for the encouragement, lady.

Except I didn't think "lady," I thought another word; but I was trying very hard not to abuse or be rude to the agents because it isn't their fault that they work for a crappy company. They have to receive the abuse of a thousand other people who, like me, have been screwed over by the airline that leaves no margin for error, yet operates in a state of constant error. This little patronizing "lady" very much tested my resolve not to cuss anyone out.

Did you know that they cannot actually refund you at the counter? No, you have to fill out a form, then send in the form with your ticket, and then your account will be refunded in 2-4 weeks. If they are still in business then. I also asked if there was a number to call to complain. They gave me a scrap of paper containing, on about its 100th generation, a photocopy of an e-mail address and website that I could contact.

"What about my luggage?" I asked. The agent said that he would call to have it pulled and I could pick it up in ten minutes at baggage claim #9. I went down to baggage claim #9. Thirty minutes later, when my luggage hadn't appeared, I went to the luggage agent desk. "Oh," said the agent, "it takes at least 2-3 hours for your luggage to appear." At this point, the time was about 3 pm. I had a 12 hour drive ahead of me and very little sleep behind me, but could do nothing but sit by baggage claim #9 for two more hours.

Then, the belt stopped. No more luggage came out. Back at the desk, I asked, "can I just check to see if it is coming out at all?" This agent told me that, if my luggage hadn't appeared after an hour and a half, then there was no way to know where my luggage was. It might be going on to Jackson. It might be sitting back in the bowels of O'Hare. They just couldn't say. "Well," I asked, "will it get to Jackson eventually, like tomorrow or the next day; or, if you have pulled it, will it just sit here in Chicago until I pick it up myself?" They couldn't say, I would have to speak to a supervisor. There she was, over there. I would have to go chase her down. So, I did. She told me the same thing.

I returned to the ticket counter to speak to another supervisor, or as I put it "someone who can actually get something done." Mostly I wanted to vent on someone and mostly I wanted to get them to pay for my car. I got in the shortest line again. Again, I was approached by a tiny lady -- a different tiny lady -- in a uniform and with a clip board. I honestly have no idea why these ladies carried clipboards, because all they seemed to do was shoo people to the right line. I kept getting in the "preferred customer" line and I belonged in the "everyone else" line.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"I am very very very upset," I said. I was shaking by this time. "I would like to see a supervisor."

She may have been a different lady, but she had the same patronizing tone. "You will have to stand in that line over there."

"No," I said. "I want to see a supervisor. My flight was over two hours late. I missed my connecting flight. You have no flights to where I need to go until tomorrow afternoon and I have to be there tomorrow morning. I now have to drive 12 hours overnight, and you have lost my luggage."

Somewhere around, "I want to see a supervisor" she said, "well all of these other people have problems, too, so you will have to wait in line."

"All of these other people are going to get where they need to go and they have their luggage," I said.

"You will just have to stand in line." Again, she nearly pushed me into the line and turned her back on me. I seriously wanted to hurt someone, or cuss someone out, or just shriek. Instead, I cried. I know, that makes me look so unprofessional and unable to handle stress and girly and I was perfectly aware of the irony that I had just come from a women's history conference full of feminists. But, if I didn't cry, I would have been arrested for assault, battery, and excessive use of the f-word. I would have become a threat to homeland security and perhaps sent to Guantanamo where they would have really given me something to cry about.

When I got to the counter, I asked to see a supervisor. The woman went to go get a supervisor, but was stopped by her co-worker. "Where are you going?" the co-worker asked. "To get the supervisor," replied the agent. "Don't do that," said the co-worker. "She doesn't want to be disturbed." From there they switched into Spanish. I'm not fluent. I only know the bad words, and they didn't use any of those.

Then the co-worker came over to me, gave me another scrap of paper in its 100th photocopy generation, and told me to contact Customer Service via the e-mail address on the scrap. I was so tired and demoralized, so aware that no one was going to do anything except send me to another department, and that all the departments operated independently from one another, and that most of the people in any given department didn't even have any idea what was going on in the department, that I was halfway to the car rental office before I realized that the co-worker had pretended to be a supervisor to get rid of me.

My story doesn't end there. Not by a long shot. I called National car rentals from the kiosk at the information desk in O'Hare. From what I could tell from our very static filled conversation, they had reserved a car for me; but when I arrived at the car rental counter, they told me that "we can't send cars to Mississippi."

"On principle?" I asked.

"No," the agent said. "We just don't have any cars with Mississippi plates. I have one that can go to Scranton, Pennsylvania."

In all my years of renting cars, this was a new one. The fight was all out of me, so I just took the little shuttle back to the terminal and started again. This time, however, I called from my cell phone. Those kiosk phones are crap.

Avis came through for me -- that is until I got the bill. Somehow, between the rental and the return, 28 hours later, the charge went from $200 to $600. Sure, I didn't top off the gas tank, and gas costs a fortune, but I filled the tank twice and put together the cost was not $400. We are still working that one out.

I drove all night, starting out at 6:30 pm, pausing to take a nap in a rest stop at 5 am, and arriving in Jackson at 8 am. You can go almost 100 mph in the middle of the night. You don't want to, but you can. Also, when you've been up and driving for that long, your eyeballs go to sleep. You know, like when you sit on your foot too long and it gets all prickly and numb? Your eyeballs start to have that same sensation. That's when a nap in a rest stop becomes the lesser of two evils.

When I got to Jackson and checked into my dorm (Jackson State, incidentally, has some incredible dorms), I called American. My luggage was still lost. They finally located it around noon when it arrived in Jackson after having had a lovely trip through Dallas. Surprisingly, they also delivered it to me.

That still didn't end my American travails. On my return flights, back here via Dallas-Fort Worth, both planes were delayed. Fortunately, I was able to get on an earlier flight as a stand-by passenger; but it was so late, that I missed being stand-by on the earlier connecting flight. Seven hours in an airport is not fun. The flight back here was supposed to leave at 8:40 pm. Not only did they change the gate three times -- and by "change the gate" I don't mean from A12 to A15, but A12 to D37 to C21, which involved riding a little tram with each change -- but the flight did not get off the ground until 10:30 pm. The gate agent just stopped announcing delays because the passengers were in a state of near rebellion. Between the delays, and the single shuttle to the parking lot that took an hour to arrive, I did not see my apartment until 3 am.

I had predicted, several years ago, that the next violent incident involving the airlines would not be a terrorist, but a disgruntled passenger who just couldn't take it anymore. I was nearly that passenger back there in Chicago. I had also resigned myself to the fact that flying anywhere on a commercial airline, regardless of the number of connections or the time of your flight, or the actually amount of time that you spend in the air, now takes a whole day. I'm beginning to think that it takes a whole week. As a mode of transportation, a means of getting you from Point A to Point B by a specified time, it is becoming useless. Seriously, I will rent a car, take the train, learn to fly and do it myself, walk, anything before I resort to commercial airlines again; and when I do fly a commercial airline, you can be damn sure it won't be American Airlines.

They worked my last nerve.