Last month I left Los Angeles for a few days and traveled to St. Louis with my family for a wedding. I’m not from St. Louis and have no real connection to the place, other than my wife and her father’s side of the family.
When I think of St. Louis, I think of the Arch, Budweiser, the Cardinals, Jon Hamm, a Bruce Hornsby bootleg in which he mentions the Dred Scott decision before going into a kick ass version of “The Way it Is”, and finally, moving to Los Angeles so many years ago, when my father and I were driving cross country.
When we were passing through St. Louis, Stephen Bishop’s “It Might Be You” came on the radio.
“What movie’s this from?” he asked.
“Tootsie.”
“Good song. Good movie.”
Tootsie’s one of my favorite movies. It seems to get better each time I watch it. Of course, it’s set in New York and that doesn’t hurt my affection for the film.
…and there I was, nearly sixteen years ago, driving with my father and a couple good friends to make the move that would define my adult life. And I’m not entirely happy with that definition so far.
I don’t want to fool with too many “what ifs” because any minor adjustment might prevent me from that recent visit to St. Louis and my wife’s
family with our nine month old. Meaning an early exodus from Los Angeles might have caused me to miss meeting wife and ultimately having our son.
And it’s platitudes and rationalizations such as these, as true as they may be, that make me feel a little bit better about my choices. Or lack there of.
When flying to St. Louis (the first time with our baby) we anticipated that we’d be able to board the plane first, but American Airlines seems to have jettisoned this policy. They did however want to make sure that we had our car seat, though they didn’t seem to care whether or not it was buckled in properly. Just that we be quick about it because we were holding up take off.
Perhaps that’s why they used to let children with small children
board first.
“Charge for bags” they say. So now you have an increase in carry-ons that also slows down the boarding process.
Think it through.
I don’t want to be “that guy”. I don’t want to be the guy that complains all the time. Though who knows, I may have always been “that guy”, but I find as I get older, I’m more aware of doing it – like just now.
Maybe I’m not doing it more, maybe I’m just noticing I do it more. If anything, I’m keeping better track. And though it might be a valid complaint, it still seems to be part of a larger problem. Maybe I’m complaining more because there’s more to be complaining about.
I heard both Senator Harry Reid, a democrat, and Congressman John Boehner, a republican, were both equally complaining that the U.S. Olympic Team’s uniforms were made in China. As if to say that all the other shit American companies make over there is perfectly ok, but since we didn’t take a symbolic “time-out” for the Olympics, it’s just cause for national outrage.
If you’re ok with stuff being made over there instead of here, don’t get pissed when you find out that…well, stuff’s made there instead of here.
What’s that have to do with kids boarding early on a plane? I don’t know. Maybe something about it being better then? But I don’t really know if it really was.
Most realists make the argument that we were just younger and didn’t know any better. God knows stuff has been made elsewhere for most of my lifetime and flying hasn’t been fun since my shoulders broadened.
Unless I’m flying first class.
Flying coach you’re packed in there like cattle, first class is…is…is…Well, you’re really just in a quasi comfortable seat, right? Though they may smell vaguely of shit, trains are at least roomy.
That’s the thing about first class – you get a meal, a decent seat and better treatment from the attendants (maybe that last part is psychological) but you’re essentially just treated like a human.
I’ve only been lucky enough to fly First Class a few times. And though I might be playing it down a tad, it is nice, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on a private jet. I mean at the end of the day the First Class folks are still jammed in with the rest of us unwashed. The real high rollers have their own jets. And that really does lay it all out:
There are those that can’t afford to fly at all, those that can only fly coach, those that fly first class – and those that have their own jet.
When we complain to the poor folks working on the plane about baby’s car seats and boarding order, it’s the people that own the private jets that made that bad decision in the first place. They never even hear the complaining so how are they to know that they’re doing anything wrong?
There’s always been a gap in wealth. There’s always been some folks that had a lot more than others. And in some ways, there might be more of those folks that have a whole lot. I mean how many private jets did the very rich have fifty years ago? Depending on how you look at things, this is grand progress or a big part of the problem.
I mean, when we talk about frivolous things like private jets and yachts, that’s one thing – but what about health care? A decent wage? Olympic uniforms being made in China?
Was it better 50 years ago? Some ways yes, some ways no – And in the yes column, probably only a little bit in reality. But I think that little bit makes a huge difference.
Kids boarding early, a little more shoulder room in coach, a few more cents an hour for the attendants – hell, the pilots! Pay those pilots. Keep them happy for the love of everything decent and holy. Are they charging more for luggage so they can pay their attendants and pilots? I hope so. If that’s genuinely the case.
But how much do the CEOs make in comparison to the folks actually flying the planes?
I see no innovation in the airline business in the past decade that justifies a hefty sum for CEOs. I think each of us thank our God for our pilots each time we fly. At least we should.
But I’m speaking out of turn because I really don’t know how much airline CEOs make. I’m only assuming i
t’s a lot.
t’s a lot.
There are fewer large airlines. Fewer choices. So…there’re probably more folks with private jets, and fewer airlines. Good thing or bad? It depends on how you fly, right?
The truth is, I don’t fly that much. 90 percent of my flights have been when I was either heading home or to where I wish I lived.
When I arrived in St. Louis and took a look around, I thought to myself:
This might not be a bad place to live.
Now, methinks that might have been a “grass may be greener” view. Nothing against St. Louis, of course. As I’ve clearly just stated, it seems like a great place. But I don’t really want to live there. It’s just closer to and looks a lot more like…
Somewhere else. Something else.
And does that kind of confusion come from dissatisfaction with where one is, or because he truly longs to be elsewhere? In my case I think it’s a mixture of the two and it’s certainly difficult to objectively evaluate the proportions of the two elements. Nevertheless, there’s an itch and my dissatisfaction with where I am is squarely professional. So really, geography probably isn’t the bulk of it. Afterall, where I am is still the best place to be to do what I want to do, but since I’m not quite doing it yet, perhaps I’m confusing “someplace else” with success.
I don’t know. If I were one of those people with a private jet, I still think I’d rather be living in New York. Which works out because it seems that those are the only folks who can afford to live there comfortably anyway.
In short, I haven’t achieved anything that I had set out to do yet. Whether I will remains to be seen. “Keep at it.” They say. “Forget it.” They say.
There’re a lot of “theys”.
Do I wish I had a private jet? Not really. First class? Sure. But honestly, I just wish there was just a little more leg room in coach.
C I P R I A N I 
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