Where Have You Gone, Eastern Airlines?
Remember what fun it was to go to the airport in Paleolithic times when there was no Covid, little security and passengers with seats in the back of the plane entered first? Recall when there was no charge for luggage, the seats tilted back without whacking the citizen behind you in the nose and the stewardess asked if you wanted pate de foie gras or pheasant under glass for dinner? People dressed up in their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes for this special occasion, got a haircut, shined their shoes. You never know, you might meet Mister or Miss Right on that airplane, find a phone number from a flight attendant in with your salad, get a seat next to Lana Turner.
It was Wonderland. All the planes left on time and arrived early. Passengers were greeted at the gate by smiling friends and family. In Honolulu, you even got leid. On a good day, you might get an autograph from Bob Cousy since sports teams traveled with the general public. The airports were festive, the ticket clerks perky and helpful, the redcaps were available to help with your luggage, which almost never got lost. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end. We thought wrong, terribly wrong.
Now, if you’re lucky, the Red Sea will part and you will get to the airport on time, two hours before your flight. A grouchy ticketer will scowl her disapproval over some minor matter at the counter, weigh your bags and hit you up for another $60 if you’re a kilogram overweight. After that, you’re herded through The Great Mooing Maze at security, where you will be required to put all your earthly possessions in 18 separate little containers (don’t forget to separate those creams, liquids and powders, you dumb bastard!), take off your shoes if you’re under 70, and for God’s sake don’t leave any handkerchiefs in your pocket, they could be hiding a bazooka.
The real fun begins at boarding, when the little lady at the desk begins sorting out the 26 zones the passengers have been divided into. Ah, for the days of first-class and “commercial,” when the elite were admitted early and got their drinks in time to sneer slightly at the rabble headed for the cheap seats. Now we have an incomprehensible gaggle of categories dictated by whether or not you are a member of Atlas Airways’ Superior Humans Club, a very frequent flier or how much extra you wanted to shell out for your very small, too-close-together piece of paradise.
Of course, the families with children get on first, which almost makes it worth having them. Then, the people in wheelchairs, many of whom are obviously faking. Before you accuse me of being a churl, I have photographic evidence of phonies rising from their motorized vehicles like Lazarus and hotfooting it down the ramp. Wheelchairs are just another clever prop used by wily shysters and crooks to enhance their daily activities. Less than three months ago, a sniffer dog alerted police to nefarious activity at the Milan airport, where a wheelchair user had stuffed a small fortune in cocaine into the chair’s upholstery. When he saw the cops coming, he jumped up and ran like Usain Bolt. Next time you see a suspect wheelchair perp at the gate, drop a twenty on the floor and then get out of the way.
Okay, you’re finally in your little middle and aisle seats, all tucked in, when the window seat guy arrives. Don’t frown, this is just the natural order of things. It is one of Preeminent Rules of Flying, just like the one that dictates all crying babies will be located either directly in front, behind or right next to you. Don’t bother looking for one of those little airline magazines with the easy crossword puzzles and sixty pages of maps showing everywhere the airline travels, they don’t have them any more. They still bring beverages around, though, so hold onto them for an hour until the stale lunch arrives from German pretzel camps in Pennsylvania. The flight attendant might allow you two bags if you look needy and/or are a glutton for punishment. The crew will then pass up and down the aisle 75 times to allow you to dispense with your garbage. Throw them something, anything, or they won’t leave you alone.
Thank your lucky stars, it’s almost over. You’re on the ground in Pleasantville, you can call your Aunt Hattie, who’s been waiting with a death grip on the phone for the last three hours, sure you were incinerated somewhere over Cincinnati. Remember when the stewardess got on her little microphone and asked passengers to let folks with quick turnaround flights get off first, and they did? Try that now, you’ll get run over in the stampede. How rude, you might think, but not so, my friends, because the early deplaners, like the wheelchair perps, are probably faking it also.
On your way to the baggage palace, feel free to take your time, the luggage crew will have to finish the card game your pilot had the gall to interrupt. Don’t use the first bathroom you see, it’s always crowded, the toilets overflow and you’re liable to slip on a renegade urinal soap cake. Now, if you’re lucky, check those monitors above the conveyor belts to find your flight number and you’ll be all set. Don’t pay any attention to the hairy guy with the sign that reads “Welcome home from prison, Uncle Arthur,” he’s an obvious showoff. Sit down for a minute, take a breath, read your messages and thank God you made it. Allow yourself a little smile for your accomplishment. Mull over your plans for a relaxing evening.
Oops, did that announcement just tell us our bags were coming in on Baggage Carousel #2 instead of #56? Anybody here got a motorized wheelchair?
The Demise Of The Scalper
“Where have all the scalpers gone, short time passing?”
The biggest buzzkill in all the sports word, except for the bombastic rap music rattling sternums in every stadium in the country, is the loss of the loveable scalper. Where is Bobby D. these days, where is Ticket Steve or Sittindown Solomon, the 380-pound ducat broker? There was a time not long ago where these marketing icons roamed (or sat near) the arena streets, hawking their wares with oversized seating charts and good humor. “I got two on the fifty,” piped up Solomon, who was probably lying, but it got your attention.
I am likely sympathetic to these colorful gentlemen because once, for a very short time in Austin, Texas, I was a scalper myself. The Ranger magazine, for which I toiled daily, was allotted 4 tickets for each Texas Longhorn home game and editor Gilbert Shelton always gave me two, the profits from which were my meal money for the week. Despite my destitute situation, I always went to the games myself and sold the remaining $10 ticket for an outrageous $25. “You’re a pirate!” I was told, more than once. “Yeah, but a pirate with a ticket,” I replied, pocketing my crisp reward. Hey, $25 was a big deal in 1962….good for four dinners at the Chicken Shack or six at the Market Misspelled Menu Cafe in Mextown.
Ticket scalping was a light industry all over the South until Covid came along and spurred the growth of “mobile” tickets. On any Saturday, you could find edgy professional scalpers and fans alike, with fistfuls of tickets in the air. In Gainesville, Bicycle Bradley skittered through the gutters on his trusty Schwinn, buying here, selling there. Endzone Eddie, who prided himself on Uecker seats, could find you a nice spot just behind the goalposts. Testy Teddy was a master of the insult, criticizing a potential customer’s lack of appreciation for his wares. “Whadda YOU know—y’don’t know Jack about Section 19, you meatball!”
Now this bastion of Americana is gone, another sacrifice to humdrumery and pragmatism. The venues save money, there are no counterfeit tickets to worry about and it’s impossible to forget them at home, they tell you. After all, these days nobody ever loses track of his pants or his phone, both attached at the hip. But what about the guys with the straw boaters who loved sticking decades of tickets in their hatbands? How do you frame a mobile ticket for exposure in your vaunted Gator Room? There are really no tickets at all, just temporary mirages on your cell phone, used and forgotten in a trice, like the last rose of Summer.
Somewhere out there on the fringes of Fort Meyers at the Old Scalpers Home, Ticket Steve wheels his gilded chair over to see Bobby D. and reminisce about the glory days. “We were big, Bobby, bigger than life. Those starving fans looked at our baubles with admiration, with envy. ‘What a way to make a living,’ they probably thought. And remember the scalper groupies who used to gather in back of the taco trucks gossiping about our assets? Ah, those were the days.”
But Bobby D. isn’t smiling. “I think I’m snakebit,” he sighs. “First, my stepfather’s typewriter shop bites the bag. Then my record store in the mall closes down. Ask me how much stock in Blockbuster Video I had, now it’s like Monopoly money. Lucky for me I still have waterfront property in Monterey, that’s my lifesaver. Huh? What’d you say? No, I hadn’t heard. What earthquake?
There were strange things done in the midday sun by the men who moiled for gold. Now, it’s all over but the pouting.
When We Were Kids
There was a time very, very long ago before girls were interesting and a quarter in your pocket would get you a Coke and a candy bar, when the world was small and comfortable. Do you know what a baseball smells like? A kid does. He holds it close, inspects it carefully, runs his fingers over the seams, then slaps it time after time into his new, well-oiled glove, breaking it in. A baseball glove is a very personal thing to a young boy, it must be pounded often with ball and fist, twisted, turned and otherwise tortured until it fits perfectly onto his hand like another appendage.
The young boy picks up a bat, checks the number on the knob, takes a few swings, discards it and looks further, searching for a perfect companion, one which will allow him to swing fast and smoothly, but also provide some power. It’s a delicate balance and concessions must be made. The boy will eventually identify with either Dom DiMaggio or Ted Williams, the leadoff man or the cleanup hitter, and his predilections will become clearer.
So many choices to be made. The pitcher is the hero or the goat, feels the most pressure, requires a measure of calmness and finesse and must have an arm capable of the demands which will be made. Conversely, he is free of the requirement to be a good hitter, something to think about if you wear coke-bottle lenses or run like an elephant.
If you happen to be lefthanded, some choices are made for you. A ground ball to second base, third or shortstop cannot be delivered to first as quickly by a lefty, thus consigning him to pitching, catching, first base or the outfield. A clever lad might give some consideration to catching despite the obvious unpleasantries of pain and discomfort and his equipment being labeled “the tools of ignorance.” A moderately competent catcher is always in demand, has less competition and is excused for having a batting average lower than a limbo stick.
Right field is the province of the last kid chosen. Most of the time, he can roam the landscape with impunity, the majority of hitters being righties who will plunk the ball into left field. Occasionally, of course, someone will swing late and dink the ball toward Paul Brooks in right, who will give it a mighty try, circling beneath the dangerous orb before closing his eyes and letting it bonk him squarely on the bean. This is acceptable to the other kids because he is, after all, Paul Brooks.
Baseball is what it is because anyone can play and almost everyone has. A kid can be large or small, fast as The Flash or slow as a snail, smart as a whip or dumb as dishwater. Kids with one hand have played baseball. Girls can play baseball. Jimmy Lavery’s sister Joycie could play baseball better than Jimmy. A kid with a wife-beater dad and an alcoholic mom could play with the best of them, and needed to. You forget about everything else when the game is on, then you talk about it until the next game.
When I was very young, I saw a kids’ baseball uniform in my mother’s Spiegel catalogue. I drove her crazy until she bought it for me. For some reason, it was a Red Sox road uniform, gray with “Boston” spelled out across the chest. I wore it everywhere, including once to school, which was clearly against the rules. I was promptly sent to the Sister Superior’s office, usually a fate worse than death. Surprisingly, this formidable icon got up from her desk, walked over and smiled. “My father was a shortstop in the minors,” she said. “I went to all the home games and they let me play in the dugout. Now I’m a Red Sox fan, just like you. Tell you what---just wear that Boston shirt under your regular one. You can take the overshirt off for recess. And no yelling ‘Yankees suck!’”
Those baseball fans were everywhere. The nuns cut you zero slack for nasty football jerseys.
That’s all, folks….
