Some readers have sent emails asking why TMV isn’t posting. As we’ve explained he is out of pocket…and a few hours earlier felt he was almost in the grave.
This is written from Jefferson, Iowa, where TMV in his other incarnation will be doing shows at a county fair. The trip began VERY early in San Diego, going to the airport to catch the connecting flight to Minneapolis. That went fine. Then from Minneapolis the next flight was to Des Moines, where a 90 minute car ride would be required to get to Jefferson.
The plane got to Des Moines on time. But as it started to descend it swerved sideways and up and down. The clouds looked angry. The pilot had earlier mentioned storms moving in the Des Moines area. This was VERY UGLY.
TMV was sitting in a middle seat with no one on other side. As the plane began to swerve a stewardess immediately sat down next to him and put on her seat belt.
“I’m sitting next to you. I’m not happy about this..”
And her face showed it. Not happy. And quite concerned.
“Have you gone through this kind of flight a lot?” TMV asked her.
“In 10 years only one other time. And I’m not happy about this.”
After a minute someone noted: “Hey, he’s taking the plane up.”
And after another minute the pilot announced that he didn’t like the landing conditions in Des Moines, so he was going to circle until he was given “other options.” And flew for about 20 more minutes before he announced:
The plane would return to Minneapolis.
And we did.
But they told us to immediately check with the gate — which announced that the plane would leave again in an hour. They were going to change the crew and also fix some “minor mechanical problems.”
That blossomed into nearly two hours. But we did make it.
But instead of TMV being in his hotel at 6:30 pm, he arrived around midnight.
FOOTNOTE: Please keep checking this site for the great posts by our co-bloggers. TMV will be doing some posts from here as well (the hotel has great Internet).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.