The Native Iowan

Its been many years and many miles. From hitchhiking around the Midwest, to the first international fight, to becoming a seasoned traveler to… well, actually to hating travel, long trips and the hassles that goes with air travel. If I had my way I’d board a plane as seldom as possible.

And I’m traveling again.

This trip covers Honiara to Brisbane to Melbourne to Brisbane to Seoul to Singapore to Brisbane to Honiara. It started  18 days ago.

So far I’ve had a bit of time with family members in Brisbane, then a couple days of business in Melbourne then back to Brissie and packing my sons off, back to school in New Zealand, and my wife and a grandson back to Honiara.

So many years of tattered backpacks and tight or nonexistent budgets. So many years of floors and couches, of good fun and great times combined with moments of confusion, anxiety and uncomfortable miles.

I’m not complaining. I’ve had great travels. But I think a combination of age, ability and selfishness has changed me.

So, when it comes to traveling, I’ve been from the neophyte to the well experienced to the resistant to… Business class…

I use to hate the folks in the front of the plane. You walk past them as you moved back to economy class. They’d be sitting in their comfy seats sipping sparkling wine and looking far too comfortable.

I use to shuffle toward the rear section of the plane (the safest section of the plane) hoping like hell there’d be an empty seat next to me. I’d go into “shut-dwon-mode”  and become as comatose as possible for the 10, 12 or 14 hours required.

I often assisted this comatose state with small doses of valium or phenergen.

I rarely ate airline food. Carried my own water or juice. Often boarded inebriated because flying was “a party”. Seldom if ever had the cash for those nifty but expensive little bottles of booze.  I normally had my own hip flask at ready when a stiff drink was required.

Life’s a bit different, thankfully, these days. Today we’re in the air, 10 hours and 40 minutes. And I am quite happy and comfortable.

And so is Pan.

The too slim attendnats have offered to take my jacket (twice), I’m on my second glass of nice fruit juice. They serve the brand of ginseng tea I keep at home. A nice smelling meal is on the way. 

All worth the 4am wakeup call.

If I listen I can hear Pan’s pipes in the wind as it whistles over the shell of this sleek bird. Pan the seducer. Pan the prankster. Pan the inspirer. Pan, my old buddy and partner in crime.

I have no one next to me and have spread out. My jacket and Panama hat are carefully ensconced in the extra seat. My new computer is merrily draining its battery (claims to have over 7 hours of life remaining) as the new “Bond” movie (complete with subtitles) distracts my muse filled attention.

I am an experienced multitasker (or is it I am distracted easily) and work as I listen to the movie. I listen until I hear the whine of fast cars or the cough of speeding bullets. I’m after the action scenes. Of course the ever-present “bond-girls” are worth a casual glance.

But I am only partially engrossed in the movie.

My old fiend and business associate W.E. occupies the seats in front of me. He’s spread out too. It’s still a gas for us to travel together. We both giggle like naughty kids at the farcical sequence of events that led us this far…

Our first international business trip was in 1990. We met up in D.C. We were peddling our services as Pacific specific consultants, targeting US aid/ government money. We shared a hotel room. Put our glad rags on daily and knocked on doors.

We traveled back to the islands together via San Fran. We slept on friends’ floors and couches. We drank as much as possible as cheaply as possible and prepared for reentry to what we  still both agree is “the real world”.

Traveling from “over-there” to the real world is pretty difficult at best. One needs to decompress. To prepare to slow down. Living and working in the land where people go on holiday is a chore.

That trip, after making a stopover in Fiji, where we drank a bottle of cheap rum with our Doctor mate for breakfast the morning we arrived, we limped back to the Solomons where we each took no less than two weeks to recover from our “business trip”.

I do not recall any moneymaking business coming from those expenses and efforts.

So Bond is in a boat now. He somehow left Italy and the flash sports cars and is in some developing, island nation. I am obviously not paying due attention to Bond and his lady…

Pan is making too much noise. Like me he didn’t sleep much last night. Pan sleeps  very little. I heard him in the wee hours of last night as I prepared for my departure. I almost stayed up rather than accepting 4 hours of sleep. I almost stayed up to listen to Pan.

But I crawled into bed about 1am and woke groggy and flustered.  Gave W.E. a wake up call and grabbed a shower and my bags. Loaded up the rental and headed to the airport.

I’m still a bit groggy but this time I won’t let Pan’s call go unheeded.

I was just served the fancy place setting they give you in the front of the plane. I am still perplexed why we pretend that we can’t have a “real” knife on a plane. My lovely, starched napkin contained two silver forks, a silver spoon and two plastic knives. Plastic knives and silver forks… So a knife is a weapon but a fork ain’t? Go figger…

A personal little salt and pepper shaker-set and a dish of perfectly shaped butter came with the English muffin and compliments the feeling of being pampered.

A feeling I like very much.

And just as I think “tomato sauce” to go with my quiche, sausage and spuds an attendant waltzes up with a 2 ounce bottle of “Heinz tomato ketchup”

Life is good.

Bond just dropped a guy off a tall building and I just dripped ketchup on my keyboard…

The muffin was too cold, the sausage sucked, the potatoes were quite good and the quiche was passable, when smothered in ketchup. I could use another cup of tea but will sit back and see what Pan will play next for us. What the song will be as we dance our ways across the clear blue sky.

Bond is now in Spain, or is it Argentina? I’m losing interest with ol’ Bondie. Pan is much more entertaining.

I just went to the loo and was astonished at the array of personal niceties on display; tooth brush-paste kits, combs, razors, makeup (not my color), hairnets (I took three), warm socks, shoe shine cloths, blindfolds, nail files, lipstick, qtips, …  hell, they even have proper terry cloth hand towels. it’s very impressive to say the least.

Returning to a fresh cup of tea (they must be mind readers) and plate of beautifully laid out fruit, I find Bond has a new girl (I must of missed the first one’s demise) and that lunch will be served in 5 hours.

My travel experiences have shown me that Asians do pamper the customer well. Perhaps more so than Westerners. (eeee!!! No, please, not stereotypes) I compare these attendants to those on Qantas or United. With the greatest of respect to my friends that work for both airlines; sorry folks, this is really good.  

Perhaps it’s the fact that Pan is here today.

Everyone has a good time and is at their best when ol’ buddy Pan is around.

They just delivered a little bottle of water and a spray bottle of mineral water. I must have looked perplexed (a look I do real good) so the gal pantomimed spraying her face… way cool…

The first time I flew business I used my frequent flier miles to upgrade from LAX to Nadi. My wife and I were traveling together. She is as bad as a 9 year old on a plane. She’s never comfortable, has to move and shift all the time… it ain’t purtty… Very uncomfortable to be her traveling companion. So I upgraded and had a decent flight, for as change. 

Now a-days, as boss of my own company, I have it policy… if it’s over 3 hours fly-time, its business class. For me and W.E. anyway.

Bond’s bitchy boss lady is giving him a reaming as they gaze at his second dead girl.  My new computer has 5 hours and 56 minutes of battery life left. Man this is a hot machine.

I’m still saddle breaking it. A number of minor and one or two major differences to my old box. I’m still enjoying the glistening shell and unscarred screen. The box is sexy to say at least. The tomato stain suits it.

I’ve put the video machine away. Its a real nifty unit that folds about six times and then slides into a compartment below the arm rest. It would have taken a committee of engineers to design this thing. It took me quite a bit to figger out how to get it back in position.  I banged and bumped W.E.’s seat enough to make him grumble in his sleep.

He looks back and makes a funny face, “sure, go ahead and show off your new, 8 hour battery” he says. I put my thumb on my nose, waggle my fingers and chant “na, na, na, na, na, na”,

He gets a new box in June.

And Pan dances on the back of our seats.

I can hear a baby crying in economy. Here in the front of the plane it is dungeon dark. The other passengers have eaten then prepared for sleep. The attendants walk the cabin as if they were in a temple. I smile at Pan and type merrily away.

I’ve plugged in my earphones and am listening to a favored artist, Greg Brown.

Another native Iowan, Greg was pretending to go to school at Iowa City in the same era as I. I never knew him, may have heard him sing in bars but know we are close contemporaries. His songs describe scenes I was in. His tales of life, youth, interaction, failure and success mirror my own.

Greg has made the big time. If you’re interested in his poetry put to music; Google Greg Brown+, or, red house records.

One song, “Flat Stuff” pretty much describes Iowa.

“Flat stuff, flat stuff,  way out to the, way out to the setting sun…”

An attendant just brought me a cup of tea and 3 very warm and very nice cookies. Reminds me of mama’s.

I listen to Pan, take a nap, eat another 3 cookies. Enjoy the nice tea. And the miles flash past.

And so do the days.

The company we are doing bizzyness with rolls out the red carpet in Korea. They booked a good hotel for us. The food is fantastic. The company eclectic. The pace frenetic.

Pan enjoys it all.

We spend time in Inchon, Seoul and Ulsan. Eat piles of kim chee and, on the last night, drink gallons of beer.

We eventually grab a flight to Singapore, that soulless scene of draconian authority (yes I am from the 60s). Pan chose to not get off the plane when we landed.

So I sit and think of my buddy, Pan. The fun we’ve just had. I miss his company. But I’ll see him soon… another day, two more meetings and 15 hours of flying through 2 countries and I’ll be home in the Islands.

Life is good.