Forgive me if I've taken a cynical turn with this post, but it's my
blog and I feel like being cynical today.
It began with my stroll. I often have a lot of time to kill around this
gargantuan airport and so I took a long walk down in the old underground train
tunnel which spans the length of all the concourses. Silent little trams creep
through it with only one or two riders on them. They go at a veritable snail's
pace, jerking around the jinks and curves like a carnival ride, all of which has
earned them the moniker, “The Disney Train.” When it was built it was the stuff
of awe-inspiring state-of-the art airport improvement. But that was back before
the TSA and screening, and before everybody got in such a damned hurry. Now a
newer, faster, elevated tram serves all the terminals and doesn't require you
to leave the “secure” area. But for me the old tram tunnel is a good place to
take a stretch in relative solitude.
I like to walk the length of the tunnel and surface in the western-most
terminal where a little Tex-Mex lunch counter serves savory burritos. As I
waited in line I watched a captain ahead of me talking with the staccato
rapidity of a machine gun into a device protruding from his ear, loud enough for
me to hear from 20 feet away. Judging from the few words I picked out I was not
in the least interested in his business, which was apparently, business. I
think the guy had a side enterprise of some sort and was issuing orders to his
underlings. He stood in front of the serving line ducking, weaving and
gesticulating. I figured he was trying to get better views through a glass shield
of the various trays of side dishes from which to choose.
Meanwhile an attractive, stately young woman stood behind him waiting
her turn, and the contrast between the two struck me in a sorrowful way. She
was a good half-foot taller than the chubby little captain. Not to disparage height-challenged
people, it was the way he dressed and conducted himself that irritated me. He
was a corpulent humpty dumpty wearing a uniform cut several sizes too large.
His hat, far too big, rested on his ears, and he wore it comically tipped back
far on his head, like Col. Hogan in Hogan’s
Heroes.
In bygone times the young woman might have taken convivial notice of a
trim pilot standing near her, clothed not only in a neatly cut uniform but in a
quiet, confident demeanor as well. But to her, Captain Humpty was nothing more
than an annoying obstacle standing between her and her lunch. He most certainly
commanded no sway of esteem with her, yet she may have soon been placing her
life in his portly hands. I’m sure if that notion occurred to her she resisted it
with a shudder and purged it from her mind.
The server, barely able to understand a few words of English, was as
confused as I was. Was Humpty talking to her or the person in his little ear
piece? Poor woman. She finally got his plate prepared to his satisfaction and
he wobbled away to a table, his lips still clapping like a reed in a clarinet,
words jetting that might as well have been gibberish for all I could tell and
cared.
I collected my burrito and surveyed the dining area for a table as far
away from Captain Humpty as possible, unsuspecting that my disgust with him was
about to be trumped by an even more repugnant sight.
Just as I sat down another pilot came into view at the table in front
of me. He made Humpty look like fitness trainer. This man, in perhaps his early
thirties, weighed at least 325 pounds. He wore neither hat nor coat. His rumpled
shirt bore the four stripes of a captain and his wings told me that he flew for
the regionals. This man's belly—I'm not exaggerating—spilled out over his belt
and clung half way to his crotch, like icing melting off of a tilting wedding cake.
The grotesque bulge dangled as if threatening to break off and slam to the
floor.
He eagerly tore into his lunch, bantering between gulps with his mostly silent first officer, who had pushed his chair far back from the table in what I figured was symbolic act of distancing himself. This man was bound for the cockpit of a 50 seat regional jet. How he would squeeze into it, I cannot imagine. The nose up trim required of that plane must be near the limit.
He eagerly tore into his lunch, bantering between gulps with his mostly silent first officer, who had pushed his chair far back from the table in what I figured was symbolic act of distancing himself. This man was bound for the cockpit of a 50 seat regional jet. How he would squeeze into it, I cannot imagine. The nose up trim required of that plane must be near the limit.
I forced down my burrito only by averting my eyes from that ticking
myocardial infarction. I didn’t feel as though I belonged here anymore. I
belong in the past. I am among the last of the old guard.
What would these men think of the two imposters I saw?
Captain Hamilton "Ham" Lee
United Airlines
