Roadways

I have just returned from the hinterland.

I am back in Chicago after a visit to Alabama and then on to Dallas. At both locations I was treated to great times with family – most especially “the little people,” my three grandchildren.

The smallest one, the two-year old from Florida, came up to the Alabama house with her parents. She taught me a very provocative hip sway to the Sunday School tune, “If you’re happy and you know it.” It makes you wonder what is going on during the Bible story time. She also is quite taken with the “blessing” before mealtime. She insisted we have nine or so at dinner. Since she is the “deliverer,” she would interrupt you mid-bite to pronounce yet another.

Thankfully, it involved only a bowed head and folded hands and not the adornment of a shawl and kneeling upon a prayer rug. We would have never made it past the salad.

Aside from Baby Jesus riding around in a Humvee (see December 8,2009), the Texas Two have not yet embraced organized religion. It’s not that their parents are infidels, they have just not reached the exit ramp on the highway toward discovery or re-alignment following some bumpy patches within their faith. It will happen.

I grew up in a family on the “road to discovery.” Before it occurred, I was often snatched from my parents by a rabidly fundamentalist aunt and taken to services with the Pentecostals. I have “marched in the infantry” in the “Lord’s army,” with many righteous and some "not so" souls.

My most vivid memory is a tent meeting in the country where the music was accompanied by Willie Mae McDonald’s string band – a group with a Saturday-night reputation. Willie Mae punctuated the music, on those painfully hot Sundays, with her chewing tobacco that she could aim accurately at 20 paces.

The Pentecostals always seemed to do a lot of “rebuking.” Of course everyone was “Sister” or “Brother.” That was somewhat confusing to a 6-year old. We only saw them at church, not when we had a family gathering. The most alarming expression was “Press the Lord.” It was actually “Praise” but in their charismatic fervor and their attempt to emulate the likes of Amiee Semple McPherson, it came out “press.” I thought they were taking a hot iron to Jesus.

Some pathways are confusing.

My parents discovered the local church near where we lived, so I eventually settled with the Southern Baptists until I could no longer stomach the music as they discovered the “contemporary Christian songs.” (Shades of Willie Mae.) Gone were the great hymns of the faith which were replaced with tunes that seemed like an excuse to sing Saturday-night bar tunes on Sunday. Just say Jesus instead of Robert or Sally.

I tried the Methodists and the Presbyterians before discovering the UCC. It is actually the United Church of Christ, but there are those who see it as “Utterly Confused Christians.” (Or the other scenario: Unitarians Considering Christ.)

Along the way I have heard the best and the worst – both in sermon and in music. I have been “high” and I have been “low.” Neither having anything to do with drugs but in approach to liturgy and worship.

Some of my worst experiences with “church” have had to do with ministers who perceived their role as shepherd as that of browbeater: “My way is the best.” That must derive from a concept that their sheep are not very smart.

In those situations, the roadway can get really rough.

Maybe that is why I enjoy flying so much.

A great silver-bird lifts you effortlessly above all the potholes of life for a few minutes. Aside from the fact they lose your “things” and subject you to body patdowns when you have a pacemaker, it is generally quiet and smooth. Yes, I know that you will always use the back of your hand when you go below the waist.

In contrast to the streets of Chicago, I have yet to have anyone gesture with their middle finger in the airport. Like Bernice Clifton on Designing Women, “you can only have that happen so many times until it begins to hurt your feelings.”

I seem to be “in and out” of a lot of airports.

My Texas Two have begun to believe that I live at the airport since each time they drive with their mother to DFW, Granddaddy appears or disappears.

The oldest asked his mother, “Does Granddaddy live at Departures?”

Flying South

I am still waiting for my underwear. It is somewhere, probably in the belly of DFW, missing me. Of course, it is more than the “unmentionables” that have gone astray. Khaikis, shirts – a particular favorite madras one – a camera, pills that I stashed at the last minute, and a bottle of some cologne that was no more than three ounces. You know how it is with TSA.

I hadn’t intended on checking luggage. I am cheap.

However, the plane from Chicago to DFW was miserably small and the overhead would not accommodate my “Fruits of the loom.” So, despite my better judgement – knowing that the departing flight was almost an hour late in leaving O’Hare and I had only an hour layover in Dallas with a departure from a different terminal than the arrival – I checked luggage. I had no other choice.

The gate attendant suggested “repacking” to make the Briggs & Riley accommodate the unders without the expansion option. Give me a break! It is embarrassing enough that the TSA looks at my stuff on a screen as the bag meanders slowly by an inquiring eye. I refuse to air my “linens and things” among the masses at the gate.

I have not mastered the Rick Steves packing method.

I am a miserable assembler of my clothes. Nor have I mastered the “wash, air dry, and go while traveling Northern Italy” habit. I have even been guilty of taking dirty things home to wash when I was in college. My mom could not understand why I owned 250 pairs of underwear at the end of freshman year. “Mom, I just don’t enjoy doing laundry.”

So, I arrived in a hot and humid Birmingham while my luggage remained in an even hotter part of Texas or on some plane going otherwise.

The airline has given me a code in order to track where my underwear is.

I don’t know why I needed a code. I would think “JB’s personal stuff” would suffice. But no, I have THAGHS. It is close to “things” but not quite there. Just as my luggage is not quite here.

It would have been comforting had the code been "in the top drawer on the left." At least that way I could feel some progress toward a solution. Could THAGHS be an acronym for "This harks of a great horror story?"

Years ago, the same airline lost my luggage and when it arrived it was in a cardboard box with two additional nametags enclosed: a doctor from Wilmette, and a lady from Merced, CA. I have no idea what happened that caused this kind of marriage between my “things” and the luggage of two strangers in the air. It almost as if there is another parameter of existence called “Luggage world.” A place of mad partying and cavorting on carousels and ramps. Calvins mixing it up with “cross your heart bras.” Just imagine what the toiletries are doing. Heavens!

So, maybe before I leave the provinces, my “things” will wend their way back to my care.

I would hate it if my stuff wound up in Guatemala. Not that there is anything wrong with Guatemala.