Flying

Posted by Mark Chapman on January 14th, 2010 at 9:48 pm

Herb “Padre” Agee

By Herb “Padre” Agee

Engle­wood United Methodist Church

I’ve had to fly a cou­ple of times recently. I don’t like to fly, but I flew to Ohio to per­form funeral ser­vices for a church mem­ber who had been severely injured years ago as a Marine. What a priv­i­lege to be able to honor him and his fam­ily. That was worth it!

Then I flew to Hous­ton with my wife so she wouldn’t have to fly alone to a hos­pice con­fer­ence at M.D. Ander­son and go to an empty hotel room every night. That was worth it too, because I’m a “won­der­ful” hus­band — at least that’s what she says.

I don’t remem­ber the last time I flew before that. Did I men­tion I really don’t like to fly? It’s not the fly­ing, or the land­ing, or even the pos­si­bil­ity of crash­ing; it’s being stuck in those lit­tle bitty seats with no way to get out of the plane.

Yep, claus­tro­pho­bia! Now, you know.

First class would be bet­ter, I guess, if I could afford it, but I’m still stuck in a plane, even if the seat is big­ger with more leg room and free bev­er­ages, and I feel more impor­tant than all those “reg­u­lar” peo­ple sit­ting in the back.

Unless first class comes with a para­chute and a door opener, it really hasn’t helped me much, except for the bev­er­ages. God for­bid you have to go to the bath­room. I lived on a 27-foot sail­boat for two years and my “head” (that’s boat talk for the bath­room) was a palace com­pared to air­line bath­rooms. I surely don’t see how women use them. Women are used to bath­rooms the size of a small gym­na­sium, with couches and makeup tables, tan­ning booths and mas­sages. That’s why they’re gone so long and why they go in bunches. They tell us there was a long line, but we know the real rea­son it takes forever.

I also hate hav­ing to get to the air­port two hours early just to sit around wait­ing, but doesn’t every­one hate that? Dri­ving two hours to the air­port and wait­ing for two hours would be four hours down the road in a car. Add to that the fly­ing time and get­ting your lug­gage and rent­ing a car and what­ever time the flight’s behind sched­ule and you have six to eight hours invested. If the trip is six to 10 hours dri­ving, I’d rather drive.

Of course, the other annoy­ance is secu­rity — not that I dis­agree with the con­cept. I just think we spend an enor­mous amount of money for what looks like a pretty unmo­ti­vated group of peo­ple doing that job. Most of them look like they might have been school bus dri­vers before they hired on with TSA. Not that there’s any­thing wrong with school bus dri­vers; I was one, once or twice. Took out a fire hydrant in an ice storm, but that’s another story.

Any­way, Pres­i­dent Obama, here’s my idea for air­port secu­rity. The Army should develop another “Spe­cial Forces” whose pur­pose is just to pro­tect our air­ports and planes. They would be glad to know that they’re not going over­seas to war, but they would be spe­cially trained for this pur­pose. They dress in fatigues and carry machine guns, just to give every­one con­fi­dence in the pro­tec­tion. And dogs — they have to have dogs, sniff­ing dogs. You know the kind. They sniff out every­thing. Maybe they could have sniffed out the guy who stunk up the sec­tion I was sit­ting in.

Every day or every few days, there would be some fake ter­ror­ist try­ing to get a weapon or explo­sive through the gates. They would have a pass­word to say that would imme­di­ately dif­fuse the cri­sis. If the sol­diers at that gate miss the fake, there would be some kind of dis­ci­pli­nary action, but if they caught them there would be a mon­e­tary reward. Because of the ran­dom­ness of the sit­u­a­tion, they would always be expect­ing some­thing sus­pi­cious and couldn’t let their guard down.

I’m think­ing a pretty blond, buxom girl might have a chance of sneak­ing some­thing through. That’s another rea­son for the dogs.

So, unless it’s on a cruise ship, I don’t plan to go very far from home. Well, I would con­sider a road trip on the motor­cy­cle. I think maybe the open­ness and feel­ing of free­dom is why I love it so much. Plus, you have wide-open spaces for a bath­room — as big as the women’s, just no couch.

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2 responses to “Flying”

1. Mary Ann Leonard

   1 / 19 / 2010
   10:28 am

   Well, Herb again another great story.there is so much truth in it. i have only flew twice in my whole life,and that was so i could say i had been on an airplane.Like you I had rather drive than fly..you had some good idea’s for the air­port security,but would they listen,just a thought.Good job can’t wait till the next one. Keep up the good work.
2. beckybr

   1 / 31 / 2010
   10:24 am

   Hey Herb.…
   Enjoyed your story on fly­ing. I don’t know if you remem­ber or not but Daddy was a pilot and kept his Cessna out at Barn­well “Munic­i­pal” Air­port !!! lol
   I spent many hours fly­ing with him and his good friend Joe Wilder when I was very young. Mom did not like the plane… she was always afraid that Daddy might have a heart attack and not be able to land it. Hence… Daddy decided it would be a good idea to teach me to fly when you and I were in the 7th grade ! I loved it… and I have so many happy mem­o­ries of the time I was able to spend “alone” with Daddy… with­out the rest of the fam­ily ! It was our spe­cial time… because we both loved it. The same feel­ing you have of free­dom and spaces rid­ing your bike… is how I felt when we were in the great big blue sky !
   I many times have thought about the total trust I had in my Daddy… and had no fear. It par­al­lels so closely with the same rela­tion­ship we should all have with our Heav­enly Father… always trust­ing… and no fear… because he is in TOTAL con­trol !
   Love ya!
   Always…
   Becky

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