American Moment

Flew back yesterday, Aug. 28, from Washington DC. Changed plays at DFW in Dallas for the last leg to Austin. I was sitting in almost the last row of an American Airlines jet next to a U.S. Army soldier, a young white guy in combat fatigues, seem to be the standard uniform, and a tall, friendly African-American guy sat on the other side of the soldier on the aisle. I eavesdropped on their conversation and learned the tall guy grew up as an Army brat as a kid and knew about the military environment. As they spoke I learned the military guy had a wife in Austin about to give birth to their first child, a baby girl. As we neared Austin, a flight stewardess approached the military kid (looked early twenties) and said she wanted to make sure he was the first off the plane so he could get to the hospital, hopefully in time to see his baby born. A minute or two later she got on the PA system and asked the passengers to remain seated when we made it to the gate, so the soldier could be the first to depart. She came back on moments later and said a first class passenger had volunteered to give his seat to the soldier. She asked the soldier to get his bags and move to the front of the plane. The passengers applauded the thoughtful gesture. The plane kind of took a nasty bump at that time as we descended. I got a bit nervous-- thought maybe we were getting too much ceremony here in the cabin, but things leveled off. The stewardess added in her final announcement how it was nice that they were still "good people in the world." Not sure if she meant the American soldier or the first class passenger or both? In either case, the chain of events added a human touch to the end of my journey.

Memory Motel

Rode from Montauk to Speonk on a bus as the LIRR did not have the rail lines in service. I was surprised to see a little dangling chain with a flier announcing the trains would not be running at the Montauk rail station, the end of the south fork line. Montauk is The End of Long Island, jutting further into the Atlantic Ocean at the easternmost point of the land mass. The beaches are clean and the water is very clean. I bobbed around in the cool salt water on Mon. and Tues. afternoons. The ocean props you up with so much buoyancy you can lay flat in the water like some swami on a bed of nails. High school friend Pete S. has a house in Montauk, very comfortable, and he showed me around. Pete showed me the yellow house, a little shack of a rental down by the beach, which attracted an offer of $1.5 million, an offer rejected by the owners. I think the owners rent the place for $1200 a week in the summer season. Seems like they should have taken the offer.

So I rode the bus and got to travel through all the Hampton towns: Amagansett, East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Southhampton, Hampton Bays, Westhampton and finally, the always-popular, Speonk.

The End, as in the end of Long Island, also reminds me of the Jim Morrison song. There is a motel in the business section of Montauk called Memory Motel. Pete said the Rolling Stones have a song with that title, based on their stay at the place, a kind of biker hotel, as he described it. I'll look for the song.

Pete filled me in on some of our Berner classmates and where they ended up. These are guys and gals in their sixties and so the bigtime bruiser on the athletic field, or the guy bullying in the hallway is now a retiree with a beer bully and fond memories of intimidating the mild and the weak. Well, at least that's how I fancied the big galoots now brought to earth and bulging waistlines, varicose veins, and senior discounts on the railroad by Father Time. I did like seeing a document with everyone of my Class of 1967 classmates listed. I saw my pals names from homeroom, the girls who made my heart race, the guys I competed against in the popularity rankings. It was a Memory Motel, I tell you, full of grist for a thousand hours of pondering.... where did the time go? Ask Joni Mitchell...