The Underground Touches Down In Maine (Finally)

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I’m writing this from Maine instead of New York, a fact which comforts me greatly.

My latest Brush With the Travel World came courtesy of Delta Airlines in New York, where four undertrained ticket agents tried to make my reservation behave by repeatedly poking and prodding it with the electronic equivalent of a sharp stick.

For a little while, it looked as if New York was going to be my new home, an ironic thought; my friends know I think big cities are a lot like hell, only hell smells better.

And yes, I appreciate the group effort on the part of the ticket people (one repeatedly demanded my “ticket number” when all I knew was staring up at her from the crumpled printout of my online reservation).

And yes, the last year has not been a good one for the airline world.

The faces worn by the airline workers seemed a bit more strained, and they’re a couple seconds less tolerant of stressed, tired travelers.

Profits aren’t exactly rampant in the industry, and the airlines seem bent on maintaining a level of service one notch above the point at which passengers might strip naked in the middle of the terminal in a bid to get some attention.

Making matters worse is the post 9/11 mentality, where disagreeing with airline personnel takes on the flavor of a federal crime, even if you’re only disagreeing with them over the concept of paying extra for a ticket you already bought.

Still, we arrived Grand Lake Stream in Maine at precisely the same time we’d left Mount Shasta, our 24 hour travel circus sending me to bed for 12 more hours when it become clear I couldn’t follow a simple conversation.

I got up this morning and went for a fast hike in the woods, determined to work up a sweat and make sure everything still functioned after 24 hours among the airport herds, where sweating isn’t a sign of hard work as much as it is an example of weakness and perhaps bad breeding.

Part of that hike was a trip into town for my out-of-state fishing license, so now I can cast a line off the dock in front of the boat house with the quiet confidence of someone who is doing so legally, and tonight, I may just do that.

Then again, I may just sit on that dock and relax, soaking up the air of something that feels permanent, but which may in fact largely disappear in a couple years. More on that in an upcoming post.

See you waving from the dock, Tom Chandler.

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