“Some can and some cannot enjoy the lights, music, special programs, parties, gifts. Some enjoy them but find that the pleasure does not carry over into the rest of life. There is a variety of reasons making December a painful time of year for people. And for some this is the first December that will be terribly painful, but it will set the tone for years to come.†- Larry Harvey
I was sick on Christmas Eve, 1973. Not deathly ill, mind you, but whatever it was that was going around, I was getting it. And there was a bad storm coming in.
It was 106 miles to O'Hare from where I was living in Wisconsin, and I had purchased a ticket on United to fly to Fort Wayne. It was more than a hundred bucks, which I couldn't really afford at the time, but it was 190 miles, about three and a half hours, to drive from O'Hare to Baer Field, and it was going to be a short weekend anyway.
Then the weather set in. If the flight leaves at 7 PM, and the check-in is at 6 PM, I need to leave at 4 PM to get there on time. Better make it 3 PM to be safe. But with the bad weather, I should leave at 1 PM.
The roads, though, were clear and dry, and there was amazingly little traffic. I left at 1 PM, and arrived at 2:45. That's 105 minutes to go 106 miles, but cars were faster back then. If you ever think of checking in at 2:45 for a 7:00 PM flight, don't do it. You'd think that air terminals are where people wait on flights, and therefore, they would be designed to make waiting easy. They're not.
Airports don't make money by flying people around. Landing fees are almost free. They make their money on parking, and on renting out space, much of which goes to people who profit most if you are not comfortable waiting. They want to get you into the restaurants to buy food, into the bars to buy liquor.
Waiting for a flight anywhere else, you'll find that the seats are cold and hard, the air is cold and drafty, the surfaces made of marble, so that noise that otherwise would be intolerable, will bounce around, echoing, driving one positively bonkers.
The plane did not board at 6:30 PM and take off at 7:00 PM. The plane was still sitting on the ground at Stapleton forever, and I didn't get aboard the plane at O'Hare until 1:45 AM. Eleven censored hours, I was sitting on a cold hard surface, going through kleenex by the bushel, trying hard not to vomit, trying hard not to soil my drawers, feeling physically drained. I wanted to be in a nice soft bed, drowning in luxurious softness, staying warm with the help of hot chocolate and hot chicken soup delivered by someone female and sympathetic. I would have settled for a vest of dynamite, to blow myself and the United terminal to hell, or even some strychnine.
Surprisingly, United didn't cancel the flight. I'm sure it wasn't because of people who were only going from O'Hare to Baer Field. Either they had passengers from Stapleton, and didn't want to put them up in a motel, or else they needed to have the place someplace the following morning. Or maybe the dispatchers wanted to get the flight crew home for Christmas.
I'd like to apologize to the people involved in that flight. I was miserable, and I'm sure I made everybody around me miserable as well. That's not to say that, over the years, United didn't deserve all the misery I shared that night. (Sorry, Jan!) United Airlines is a poor excuse for an airline, which is an industry where even the best companies do poorly.
And though I looked out the window, I didn't see Santa's sleigh. Maybe he considered the weather report, and took a private jet.
This isn't my worst Christmas story. The one I told earlier, about my wife developing Lupus, was significantly worse. On the other hand, I have a number of other Christmas stories that don't meet the Norman Rockwell standard for a Saturday Evening Post cover.
One year, I was dating two girls, A and B, best friends, and had decided to propose to A. I drove to her family farm, two hours away, and A showed me her new engagement ring - she'd received it from B's brother, who had been away in the Army. I drove home to see B, expecting some sympathy, and she excitedly showed me a new engagement ring of her own.
So in my search for the ultimate Christmas song, I've narrowed it down to two songs. One was running through my head for those hours in O'Hare, because that was the year it came out: "If we can make it through December". The years we were struggling with Em's medical bills and trying to raise a son, December was an especially trying month, what with the need for winter clothes, and the costs of Christmas, knowing that January 1, there would be a new deductible to meet on the medical insurance, and we'd get clobbered again. It'd help if Christmas came in mid-summer, instead of when a new year starts, and when a new cold weather season sets in.
The other song is more traditional. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is soft and sweet, and just when you relax, it hits you with "the hopes and fears of all the years at met in thee tonight." Nobody grows up without hopes, and for the most part, life is a series of dashed hopes. Most of those boys that dream of growing up to be a fireman or a policeman don't. For every one who hits the home run to win the big game, there are a dozen or more on the winning team that don't, and a couple of hundred other kids who aren't even on the winning team.
And if you haven't experienced fear by the time you're twenty-five, there's something wrong. You've surely had the experience of walking across the floor to ask Debbie to dance, only to have her say "no", so that you can walk all the way back, and all your friends can razz you about it for weeks. You've surely driven home a little too fast, going around the corner, only to lose traction, and your steering wheel doesn't work, your brakes don't work, and you see that huge tree racing towards you in slow motion, and you know that it's going to hurt like hell.
There used to be a cartoon character who, in time of crisis, would yell "Hooooooooooooold EVERYthing!" and the cartoon would do a freeze frame while he adjusted things, then he'd say something else, and the cartoon would resume action. We need a "Hold Everything" gizmo for such times as that.
When I hear OLTOB, I think about my kids that were stillborn, and about the lives I've never led. When you're little, they tell you that you can grow up to be anything you want to be, and not only is that a lie - Willie Shoemaker couldn't have every grown up to be a pro basketball player, and Michael Jordan couldn't have grown up to be a jockey - but they don't tell you you can't be everything you want to be. Ask a kid what his favorite color is, and he'll tell you three or four or five colors. If cats can live nine lives, why can't we each live nine centuries, each as a different person?
We're not going to the midwest to see my family. We're not going east to see Blondie's family. We're going to stay right here, cuddling under a blanket with the dog, trying to pretend that it's enough. It's not. We met too late in life, and we'll die too soon of old age. But we'll try to get a lifetime's worth of cuddles in.
Whatever your plans for Christmas, I wish you - and whatever your family consists of - well.