June 30th
It was to be Cameron's first flight
solo, to new airports he'd never been. He had to fly from Jackson, Mississippi to Greenville South Carolina with a short layover in
Charlotte, NC. He was finishing up a 4 week summer school course in the Military
School where he would start full-time as a 10th grader in the fall. We had felt
that summer school was a good way for him to get to know the school and make some
friends as soon as possible, at the begining of his summer break. We had to leave Singapore almost
as soon as his school got out in order to get to Mississippi in time for the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy's report
date. But otherwise, Cameron would have to wait until their August start, with
probably a growing stomach ulcer from pretending for more than two months not to be
worried and wondering what it was going to be like.
On the same day he was to finish summer school, I was finishing up a short conference
on Applied Theatre in the lovely little southern town of Greenville. This was a
mere 2 hour drive to my brother's mountain cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains
just north of the Georgia border. A week with the cousins would be a good
reward for my young cadet, who in these last 4 weeks had no doubt experienced
homesickness for the first time (along with grits, and who know what else!). He certainly would have a realistic idea of what
kind of new life was going to be his in the fall. We hoped he'd also have a good dose of regret for
not getting his act together regarding his grades and work ethic this past year
in 9th grade while he'd been with his parents in his familiar home in Singapore.
Evangeline, a new friend from the
conference dropped me at the airport and I immediately went to rent a car before
the plane arrived so that we'd be ready to scoot off up the mountain and get to my brother's family cabin before nightfall.
Soon I was waiting near the arrival gate. I enjoyed
people watching the characters of the American South. I wondered who they were
and who they were there to pick up. One couple caught my eye. Both of them were
in their 40's at least, but they didn't seem to be a couple. Him with the
scraggly goatee and long blond hair, cowboy's gait and missing tooth. Her,
thick around the middle, and around the neck. A mess of hair with long dark
roots. Makeup obvious, and obviouly not quite right. Dangling earrings that
involved a few feathers. cowboy boots under her knee length housedress. They
seemed to be characters from the television show "Justified."
Another very short, round and rather
horsey woman was obviously waiting for a passenger on the same flight. She had
a friendly demeanor and had her cellphone ready.
A cell phone. Shoot. That was one of
the hiccoughs when sending off Cameron to summer school. I had not arranged to get him a cell phone before
he left, nearly an entire continent away from those of us staying in
California. He was going to be making this maiden flight to meet me without a
phone. “He'd be fine,” we all
had comforted ourselves. “Imagine;” we
reminded ourselves, “we all got along for years before
cell phones. Don't worry about it.”
The plane's arrival was late. The
gate monitor announced DELAYED with no other explanation. I went down to check
with the airline desk. No one at check-in, or at the information counter could
give any additional information.
Another 40 minutes went by and the
ARRIVALS monitors showed the flight number as arriving to a different gate.
This was not a large airport, so the people who'd been at the first gate waiting for this
afternoon flight were beginning to obviously take notice of one another. During
the waiting, I approached the couple, and the single woman to hear if they
knew of anything about the delayed flight.
No sooner had we reached the new
gate, then the ARRIVALS information changed to DELAYED again and there was no
arrival time posted. "What on earth could be happening?" I commented
to the Justified characters within earshot of the single gal.
"I should have fed the horses
before I came. They’re gonna be awful hungry by the time
I get back." she said confirming my suspicions about her hobbies.
"I don't know about y'all, but
I'm gonna get myself a drink," the blonde redneck said as he noticed the
bar nearby. We all thought that was a good idea, not knowing how long we were
going to be waiting.
I was starting to get more concerned
about Cameron being stranded with the delay in the Charlotte airport. I also realized our plan
to make it up the mountain was not going to happen before it got dark and
wondered how this evening was going to end. I knew it would work out somehow,
but I also knew that 15 year old Cam had been a bit nervous about this first flight, and
didn’t know if he’d be assertive enough to find out
what was going on as he waited to board his transfer flight.
After we ordered our drinks there in
Greenville, the single woman decided that she’d call
her mom again. I asked her, “Say, would you ask her to look for a
teenage boy by himself? A big one with a crew cut. Dark hair. Dark skin.
Looking, probably a little lost.”
It didn’t take
her mom on the other end of the phone to find Cameron and the woman approached
the big boy she saw sitting on the floor with a backpack, wearing a school polo
shirt, khaki pants…and holding a pillow. He was quite
surprised when the stranger said to him, “Are you
Cameron?”
“Yeah.” He
answered, and she handed her phone to him. “I’ve got
your mom on the phone here.”
Now, I can only imagine what went on
in his mind as he took the stranger's cellphone, but I’m pretty
sure he rolled his eyes and wondered at my seeming omnipresence even as he was
branching out on a life of his own. Three weeks earlier the cadets attended the Presbyterian Church of Port Gibson MS. Though his Californian mom, who lives in Singapore had only spent 3 days of her life in the state of Mississippi, a number of ladies approached him after church knowing he “must be
Cameron”, and that they’d met
his mom and were going to be “looking out for him.”
“I’ll bet
you’re surprised to hear my voice.” I
laughed. He did too. “What’s going
on with your flight up there bud?”
“I don’t know.” He
mumbled, sounding even slightly annoyed, as teenagers often do. But I know he was
relieved that we’d connected. “I don’t know.
Something…uh, technical.” He had
no information.
“Are you
okay? Did you get the $50 gift card? Do you have anything to read while you
wait?” He was fine. He had money to buy some food, but he had nothing
else with him but his pillow; which was okay with him. He said it had been an
early morning and he was sleep deprived from the military school regimen so he
didn’t mind just snoozing as long as he needed to wait. I was calmer just hearing
his voice, knowing that he wasn’t
freaking out. The other adults on the Charlotte end of the phone didn’t know
how long it might be, so we all just decided for the time being to wait and see
what might happen.
The drinks had arrived and I had
some fun getting acquainted with these new southern friends. As the Justified
blonde man shot back his Jack Daniels, they told me some crazy story about one
of them moving up from Florida, and now their older brother was coming down from
Charlotte to meet them. They were all going to move back home with their ailing mom in the
South Carolina family home in the country. He was out of work, had done some
stand up comedy. Meeting these folks was better entertainment than I’d had
all week at a drama conference.
I told them a bit about my story and
the guy said, “I’m buying your drink. I never bought a
drink for a pastor's wife before!”
Another half hour went by and there
was still no update from the airline on a time. Whatever the technical problem
was they didn’t have a guess how long it would take
to fix. We’d already waited more than two hours.
That’s when the horse woman mentioned that the drive to Charlotte only takes
an hour and a half.
She called her mom, to see if there
was any new news on that end.
Evidently, some freak accident had happened to
the airplane’s navigation system. It was an
extremely hot day, and a random plastic shopping bag had blown past an
important antennae sticking out of the aircraft. The bag had gotten caught on
it…and then melted. This was causing all the problems: the navigation
system didn’t work with the melted plastic on
the small wire, and it was proving difficult to remove because of where it was on the
outside of the plane. They had no idea how long it would take, nor was there an
alternate aircraft available to make this short flight.
We all decided at that point that we
were going to drive up to Charlotte to rescue our relatives. We exchanged phone
numbers, and our names. The horse woman, Sharon, would lead the caravan, as she
knew the way. We described our vehicles and figured out how we would find one
another outside of the parking lot, paid for the drinks and for now, put
Greenville’s airport to our backs.
Before we left, I’d had
another chance to touch base with my son. According to Cameron, he was also
quite entertained by the people he was meeting up there. This granny on the
other end of the phone was quite a fiery woman! She wasn’t any
too happy with the airline and was seeing to it that they indeed could get
their luggage off the plane so that they could drive back to Greenville instead of waiting "hell knows how long" for the flight.
“Well,
dear," I said, "you stick by her side and we’ll see
you in about 90 minutes!”
I easily found a country music
station on my rental car and marveled at the adventures of my life.
It was a lovely late afternoon drive
along the country highway between South and North Carolina. Since the night
before I had been so excited to see Cameron after his month away at school. I
had eagerly followed any posts and photos the school put on their Facebook page. The administration did this on
behalf the sequestered cadets, and there was a password protected photo site with a batch of photos at the end of each week. We’d
received one handwritten letter from him. One. There had also been only one
five-minute phone call allowed. Now my eagerness to see him had intensified
with the drama of the delay.
Finding our kinfolk in Charlotte wasn’t too
difficult, but leaving with their luggage was.
Apparently grandma had been
misinformed by the airline personnel, and all their luggage was stuck on the
airplane. It wouldn’t be arriving in Greenville until
after 9:30. Now I was getting a chance to see the colorful grandma in action over this news, and then the new temporary friends all said our goodbyes in Charlotte with different
plans on where we were going from there.
My brother and his family up in the
mountains were notified that we wouldn’t be
coming up there until morning. Cameron and I found a restaurant off the highway somewhere in the Carolinas. We sat down and had a good catch up
over dinner. Back in Greenville, it wasn’t too hard to find a place to stay
overnight, and we picked up his duffle bag in Greenville again, after 9:30, without
any more trouble.
