Thanskgiving Thursday

by Pa Rock
Parade Float

The Macy's had two Thanksgiving Parades today - the traditional one in New York City, and a west coast affair that stretched from San Diego to the center of Arizona. I paraded out to the airport this morning in a heavy rain to get Tim and Erin to their plane, then Nick and I paraded over to Coronado to return Scott's jacket that he had left in my car, and to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Files and little Sebastian. Nick and I completed the day by parading back to Goodyear, with the rain following us most of the way. It was so nice to see rain falling across the Sonoran Desert! There was a rainbow over San Diego as we left, and a rainbow over Phoenix as we got back. With omens that good, I had to buy some lottery tickets!

A fellow at a gas station in San Diego told me that he has lived there since 1973, and last night's rain was the heaviest that he has seen in all of that time. There were even tornado warnings for Coronado Island last night. Who knew they had tornado's on the seacoast?

Tonight Nick and I paraded around Goodyear looking for pizza, but to no avail. Even the local grocery store was closed. We finally stumbled across an Arby's that was open and were able to procure sandwiches for our Thanksgiving meal!

Nick will fly out of Sky Harbor early tomorrow, and my life will start to get back to some degree of normality. Tomorrow night I am going to a Phoenix Suns basketball game. They are playing the Miami Heat. I may also go by work for a couple of hours and clear off whatever has piled up on my desk this week - if the shredder is working!

Come Fly With Me

by Pa Rock

Cowboy humorist Will Rogers is reported to have said that he never met a man he didn’t like. Well, my heart is not as pure as his, and I can dislike people based on the slightest of slights or the most insignificant provocations. But it’s not people that really get my mad game going – it’s airports!

I do not have the physical ability to remain calm in an airport, an especially dangerous situation for me because I live in Phoenix where the dumb-ass airport security caused a woman’s death last fall. You don’t mess around at Sky Harbor Airport!

Airports have always been cauldrons of discontent based on their operating procedures: overbooking flights and losing luggage being two of the more egregious examples of avoidable trip-spoilers. Weather also can have a large impact on the sanity of passengers, especially after sleeping two or three nights on an airport floor. And there's always the added thrill of never knowing how many hours you may have to sit, cramped up and sweating, on a plane before it actually takes off. Airports are not for the feint-of-heart or those with pronounced homicidal tendencies!

The biggest outrage at our nation's airports, however, is the Cretin Corps whose duty it is to rifle through luggage and remove obvious threats to public safety, such as toothpaste or hair gel. Osama bin Laden would have less trouble riding his camel onto the plane than I would trying to smuggle an extra ounce of Crest past the ever-vigilant, petty bureaucrat, cop wannabe who lives for the thrill of trying to provoke me into a stroke!

I might be able to maintain if the rules were enforced the same way in every airport, but each one does things in their own unique style. What flies out of Denver, may have to walk out of Kansas City.

And speaking of Kansas City (God, how I love a smooth transition!), those mangy varmints, I think they call themselves "First Line" or something clever like that, have one of the choicest scams in the nation. Kansas City fancies itself to be a world class barbecue town - just don't spread that tidbit to Memphis, Chicago, or the entire state of Texas! And because they are so well known for their barbecue, they sell countless barbecue recipe books and sauces in the terminal gift shops. The rub - they sell that, too - the rub is that if you buy their world class barbecue sauce, in plain sight of the luggage goons, they promptly relieve you of it as you try to board the plane. There are, of course, no signs to that effect in the places that sell the barbecue sauce.

Kansas City may have great barbecue, but I suspect that much of it is served up in the homes of the airport baggage screeners. I also bet that their families have some of the whitest teeth in the Midwest!

Visitors

Two of my friends, James and Patti Carroll of Noel, MO, were in Phoenix Thursday evening. They arrived in the late afternoon, rented a car at Sky Harbor Airport, and then drove across Phoenix on Interstate 10 in rush hour traffic and 110 degree heat. I am sure that they had had quite enough of The Valley of the Sun by the time they made it to my place in Goodyear. Later that evening after a nice meal and a tour of Luke Air Force Base, we stopped at a local CVS so Patti could by a few necessaries for their trip to Sedona the following day. James and I sat in the car and visited while Patti went to do her shopping. When she returned to the car, she had a bemused look on her face. Patti said that she had been exchanging small talk with the clerk in the store and had mentioned that she was here on vacation. The clerk had replied, somewhat astonished, "You're vacationing here!

Amen, sister!

McBush's Pickpocket

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Dear Leader swooped into Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport yesterday aboard his luxurious public transport. He was here to raise money for Arizona's favorite political miscreant, John McBush. The big fundraiser had been planned for the convention center, but it had to be moved when the McBush staff realized that a public setting would allow their candidate to be seen (and photographed) with the President - an image that the Straight Talk Express wanted to avoid at all costs. The event was hastily moved to a private home so that the press could be kept at bay.

Then, inexplicably, the McBushes showed up at Sky Harbor in the evening to see their visiting dignitary off. What followed was a comic ballet of the two hacks shuffling back and forth trying to avoid being captured in the same image. It was really funny stuff!

I have a serious question, though, regarding all of this political silliness. If John McBush is so loved in Arizona in general, and by rich Arizonans in particular, why was it necessary to fly in a professional pickpocket to relieve the suckers of their cash?

Holiday Highlights

Feliz Navidad Amigos,

I have been in Missouri for the past few days celebrating the holidays with family and friends. There was no snow in the Ozarks this holiday season, so I will have to be content with watching it snow on television or in the movies this winter. It definitely won’t happen in Phoenix!

This year’s holiday adventure began as I was trying to get cleared to catch my flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport on the 19th. The good folks at TSA managed to find a reason to collect my shaving cream and toothpaste, even though I thought that I had met all of their insufferable criteria. (The plastic baggie that I had them in was too big, as were the containers. And, for all of you future travelers out of Phoenix, it’s not the amount of toothpaste in the tube; it is the amount that the tube was designed to carry.) Sky Harbor is one place where you do not want to argue with authority figures. Last September their airport security caused the death of a woman when they handcuffed her and left her alone in a locked room. The lady was inebriated, supposedly, and spoke impolitely to the airport cops. After they left her alone, she choked to death trying to squirm out of the handcuffs. Turns out she was a wealthy, well-connected socialite from New York. Whoops! That’s gonna cost them an airplane or two!

My second holiday adventure occurred at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, a former cow pasture located just outside of Bentonville, Arkansas, near the little crossroads of Highfill. Highfill International, as it is lovingly referred to by the locals, is a relatively new airport that was put together about a decade ago by the Walton’s, Tyson’s, Hunt’s, and other assorted aristocrats of the area. My Dad arrived there on the 19th to pick me up. There was a parking space right in front of the terminal, which he thought was great, so he parked there and went inside. (My Dad is eighty-three. It takes a great deal of effort for him to walk, and he can hardly hear at all.) When I met him in the airport I heard an overhead announcement describing his truck and saying that the owner needed to get out there immediately. I put on my best smile and went out to resolve the situation. The lady with the ticket pad was already writing and refused to show any holiday spirit. I had her bring her supervisor outside and proceeded to give them some of my holiday spirit. Total price: $20.00 - and I don't regret a single peso! There is no doubt in my mind that Santa Claus will leave chicken poop in her stocking this year!

Adventure number three happened the next day after I had torn apart my Dad’s house searching for my car keys. I had left my car at a park and fly (The Parking Spot) in Phoenix, so I didn’t need them; I just wanted to know where they were. After a long, futile search, I telephoned the Parking Spot and asked Stephanie, the sweetest lady in all of Phoenix, if she would check my car and see if I had left the keys in the ignition. I gave her time to check and then called back. Stephanie replied that my keys were in the ignition, and that my car was still running – thirty hours after I had left it there! A Parking Spot driver was eventually able to get into the car, turn off the engine, and retrieve my keys. I will be nominating myself for the Darwin Award this year!

My final adventure occurred on the night of the 22nd as I was trying to leave. Winter storms were flirting with the Ozarks, and I made a decision to go to the airport the night before my 5:30 a.m. scheduled departure. I didn’t want to take the chance of having my Dad get out in bad weather. A friend took me to Highfill and I spent the entire night listening to taped TSA warnings about all kinds of ways those sneaky terrorists might bring their evil to Arkansas.

Three of my New Year’s resolutions are to always use the Parking Spot in Phoenix when I fly, always be polite to the Gestapo at Sky Harbor, and never fly into or out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Of course, there is a good chance that my next trip home will be by Greyhound, or in my amazing little car that can idle for thirty hours!

There were many happy times woven into this holiday. I saw all three of my children and both of my grandchildren. Tim, my youngest, informed us that he is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Erin, which is great because we all love Erin! Boone, my oldest grandson, announced that he had given two girls diamond rings for Christmas. He bought them at the dollar store. I saw my sister, Gail, and two of her kids, Tiffany and Justin, and Justin’s wife, Lisa. I had lunch with some of my old co-workers, and ran into some others at the county courthouse. And I was able to visit with old friends Mertie Harmon and James and Patti Carroll. A lot happened in just a few short days! Now I will relax and spend the rest of the holidays with a few other good friends - both paperback and hardbound!

May '08 bring Peace to us all!

Pa Rock