lumbering encumbered
September 14, 2022
I contend that Charlotte Douglas International is the widest airport in the nation, possibly on earth, exclusively devoted to one airline. There are bigger airports – Atlanta, for example – but they all have a nice variety of airlines, whereas Charlotte is an American hub, meaning it consists of
1. American Flights
2. Flights operated by American subsidiaries (American Eagle, Envoy Air, Piedmont, Mesa, Republic, SkyWest, etc.)
3. Piddly little airlines like Contour that fly into and out of tiny airports like Muscle Shoals, AL. (No offense meant to Muscle Shoalers, you all invented soul and I’m forever grateful, but usually I’m not flying into you.)
What does all this mean? It means your arrival and departure gates for your connection may be (whoops!) at opposite ends of the airport. And what does that mean? It means you live and die by connection time.
Let me back up.
I’ve done my fair share of air travel. Moreover, I have extensive experience with the white-knuckle ride that is Flying with Valuable Musical Instruments. (Our livelihood depends on our vastly expensive and ridiculously fragile tools, ours is a high and lonely destiny, etc.) Generally I fly Jetblue, because I know what seat to pick in order to board early; with Southwest, you pony up for the Early Boarding and then set an alarm in order to check in exactly 24 hours ahead (this is a real pain when you have an indecently early flight, which nowadays seems to be the rule – your typical departure options are 5:15am, 5:45am, 5:50am, 11:20am and early evening). This knowledge has been hard-earned, but it keeps my fiddle intact, which, at the end of the day, is all I care about.
I also know Section 403 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 more or less by heart: it states that airlines must accept musical instruments on board aircraft if at the time the passenger boards the aircraft such stowage space is available, meaning you only get to leverage Section 403 if you get onboard before the bins are full. So on a day when I’m flying, my brain treats the upcoming boarding process like an application left running: it might be in the background, but it’s steadily working, assessing threats, collecting data, making contingency plans, preparing for the worst.
The Situation: Flight from Knoxville to Minneapolis, connecting in Charlotte. Connection time: 43 minutes.
Do itinerary planners put a lot of thought into making sure connection times are reasonable? They do not. What they do instead is change the font color of the connection time on your flight itinerary from black to red, in essence alerting you “Here is where you need to be stressed out,” i.e. PLEASE NOTE YOUR JOURNEY WILL LIKELY SUFFER AN UNRECOVERABLE INJURY AT THIS POINT.
“But,” I hear you protesting, “how is 43 minutes insufficient time to cross an airport? What is this airport, a mile wide?” First of all – yes. But there are other factors.
American Airlines starts boarding 35 minutes before scheduled departure. If you’re not at the gate, it doesn’t matter what group you’re in or how many of their credit cards you own or what early boarding fees you paid or whether or not you’re in the armed forces, you’re not there to board during the critical Available Bin Space Period. The speed at which overhead bins fill is like internet connection – it just gets faster with time. I don’t know if trust in baggage handlers has declined or no one wants the hassle of checking bags or everyone has a violin valued more than a decent car in their carry-on bag, but those bins go much faster than they used to. Soon the whole cabin will be full of overhead bags and the people will ride below.
So, sure, you can disembark at Gate E49 and take your sweet old time moseying across to Gate A7, and you will make your flight – technically. You will be the last to board, and the only thing you will take with you is the clothes on your back, because there is exactly zero space remaining for even a molecule of your baggage. If you’re me, this is a problem. I have the kind of baggage that I refuse to put under the plane; I’d rather miss the flight. Except I don’t want to miss the flight; it cost over $800 after all the early boarding fees and the seat upgrades and the extra bin space and all the rest of it, and the thought of sitting in the Charlotte Airport – which still, somehow, smells like an ashtray – for an extra four hours is what I think they call a soul-crusher.
So if you have precious cargo to carry on and every intention of being in line when boarding starts, you have a total of eight minutes (43 minus 35) to 1) get off the plane, 2) wait for them to bring your gate-checked, tiny suitcase back up to the jetway, and 3) cross the airport at a dead run. And this total of eight minutes is assuming you landed on time.
It turns out this is not actually possible – even if I had had the foresight to wear running shoes, I couldn’t have made it. By the time I got my bag back from Plane #1, it was two minutes to boarding Plane #2, and I haven’t run a two-minute mile in, like, soooo long. And so I just did the best I could, lumbering encumbered with my three carry-ons, flapping along like some ungainly flightless bird past lots and lots and lots of older white people in big t-shirts with pictures of barbeque joints with witty slogans (“I LIKE PIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE”), who tend to clog the moving walkway (pro tip: skip the moving walkway, it’s a death trap), likely providing them their best entertainment of the day (“Jiminy Christmas, I knew them fiddle players was crazy!”), like some travesty of my marathon experience four years back, to present myself at last, with a final galumph, disgruntled and disheveled, sweaty and exhausted, heaving of chest and wholly unaccountable, at the proper gate and discover I was now in the second-to-last group, also known as the Maybe/Maybe Not group.
So I stood on the jetway in a very long line, listening for the bell to toll, which is to say listening for a disembodied voice to announce the bin space was now full and gate-checking would commence. At which point I would have a whole new set of unattractive options.
But it never came. I made it on and the fiddle did too, shoved precariously atop a duffel. All was well that ended well, although I didn't much care for how violently the flight attendant closed the bin door. I just hope the health gods are watching on these occasions when I am forced to exercise in long pants and sandals while carrying luggage.
So what was all this anyway, some kind of epic whine? Not on your life. Stuff like this comes with the territory. I get to play music! My attitude is gratitude, or however it goes. Be prepared for the unpredictable, especially when flying, and bring a decent pair of running shoes.
A Pint of Bitter
Greetings from Shrewsbury, England, where I have the great good fortune to perform with my erstwhile, testosterone-laden pseudo-bluegrass collective, Barnstar!
Every time I get to England, there's a honeymoon period of a day or so when I walk around with a single thought: screw it, I'm moving here. Then by the time I leave I've grown weary of the food and the overcast skies and I allow myself to be deterred by the tsunami of logistics inherent in such an undertaking and gently persuaded to return to my home country — which I am much better at living in, anyway.
But today was the first day of the honeymoon, and everything from tea to a long walk along the River Severn to the brightly-colored doorways with the doorknobs in the middle was so endearingly British that I am once again hopelessly infatuated with this old flame of mine, England. And not remotely abashed, either.
It's the lingo that always gets me first. The turns of phrase are just irresistible. Who wouldn't prefer to "visit the shops" than plain old “go to the store”? And why would one just “eat” at the hotel when one could "take one's meals" there? I discovered a wonderful loophole today when I learned that desserts in England are called "puddings" regardless of whether they are actually pudding. In other words, chocolate cake or ice cream ("ice creams") is still a pudding. This suits me immensely, because I hate pudding, but enjoy saying it.
Shrewsbury, it happens, is marvelously photogenic. Some English towns are on the shabby side, but this one has all the quaintness you could want. The houses and yards ("gardens") remind me of the forts we used to build out in the woods, everything a little bit crooked, a little "off." Deliciously incorrect, imperfect. I suspect all artists are a little in love with imperfection, at least subconsciously, as it is this that gives the art its humanity. The towns feel human, too, rather than machine-assembled. Why not let the natural landscape, the rivers and trees and hills, dictate the contours of a village? They say no food is white by nature, only the stuff we have processed and manufactured. To that I would add that nature has no right angles, only gentle curves, uneven lines … glorious irregularity. Yet with beautiful symmetry, like the human body.
The British pound — known variously as a quid or a pound sterling — has no rival among coins. It is heavier and chubbier than any American coin, and this weightiness suits its status as perhaps the last living currency so perfectly unique to its country. A handful of quid doesn't jingle, it clinks — a heavy sound, like shekels if shekels were still around. The rest of Europe has meekly submitted to the homogenizing regulations of the European Union and adopted the Euro as its sole currency; the coins have a certain Fisher-Price quality to them, as if they were an alloy of metal and plastic. But England, banish the noble British pound? Not bloody likely! And while no nation can afford to resist change, may I just say that there is something immensely gratifying about one that nonetheless stalls it with all the obstinacy it can muster. (Of course, this has its frustrations, too; ask any local for a litany.)
The older I get, the less I feel obligated to impose my own values and preferences on my surroundings, and England offers perhaps more quirks and nonsensical traditions to enjoy than anywhere else, if one is only willing to get swept up in the ride. You get the sense that these are the very last things they will allow to be sanded away, because they are the essence of the national personality, the heart and soul of the culture. And good on them. Why assimilate? What's the human value in allowing ourselves to be merged into one bland, efficient whole?
The best way to come to England is on someone else's dime, and I'm blessed to be a part of Barnstar!, whose interpretation of the bluegrass genre ("bluegrass for people who hate bluegrass") is evidently compelling enough to bankroll such a trip.
The eagle lands Sunday at 5pm, GMT.
Notes from The Road
I had a special moment last night when I was stuck in a blessed traffic jam after the fireworks. This glorious hour of complete inaction allowed me to construct a theory on the regionalized personality of American automobile drivers.
American drivers can generally be plotted on a standard x-y graph, with Skill and Aggressiveness representing the two axes. (Note I do not use the term 'aggression,' which is quite a different thing.)
Midwesterners are the meekest of drivers, but they also drive with skill. Leave one alone and he will drive slowly and carefully; if he does not add interest to his surrounding environment, neither does he add to its chaos by crashing into parked cars. Average number of lifetime accidents, 0.5; average time before accelerating at a fresh green light, about three seconds. Midwestern drivers score a 5 on the Skill axis and a resounding zero for Aggressiveness. (We didn’t have an axis for passive-aggressiveness.)
Seattle is the best place to observe Driver Type 2: the highly aggressive, limited-skill type. Seattle is a coastal city and is therefore stressed-out and overcaffeinated. Ergo, the sort of driving techniques you may observe on Interstate 5 (or 'The 5,' as West Coasters have it) is a burst of speed, followed by a screeching, smoldering, heart-stopping application of brakes. A Seattle driver puts the following question to his car salesman: "You say this does zero to sixty in ten seconds. How about sixty to zero?" Aggressiveness: 9, Skill: 2; give them a wide berth.
The motorists of the Washington, DC metro area are extra special. To be fair, many of them are international travelers from foreign countries, diplomats and the like, who have limited experience with the U.S. roadway system. This earns them sympathy but not a higher score. Yes, the Beltway is one of the more idiotic ideas in all of highway planning, but you can still avoid driving like an idiot while on it. Aggressiveness: 3; Skill: 2.
New Englanders? We know how to drive. Yes, you've heard horror stories about Boston drivers. Now think back: was the teller of this tale a Bostonian? Was he even a New Englander? (No.) The truth is, Boston drivers are both highly aggressive and highly skilled. Thus, the following axiom: just keep doing what you're doing, and we'll all be fine. Yes, I'll get there faster than you, but I won't endanger your life doing it ... assuming you don’t lose your nerve and do something stupid. If you see me on your left, keep driving; if you see me on your right, behind, even above you, keep driving. I am fully confident in my abilities, I have even won awards, but it is imperative to everyone’s continued survival that you continue to drive predictably.
Thanks very much.
Colorado Sojourn
This month's update comes to you live just east of Durango, CO, perhaps the best of the many stunning locations left of the Mississippi.
The sense of relaxation and peace that dwells in this pocket of the country is fairly unbelievable. I mean, think about it, have you ever met a stressed-out resident of Southern Colorado or Utah? The air has this dry, healing quality, like it’s exfoliating you, and there’s a cleanness to everything that makes you feel clean, too. You have the slightly eerie feeling there’s no bacteria around, that none can survive in a climate this dry, so all the rivers look like they just sprang out of the mountains (I guess they did), the sky has never seen jet exhaust, and the trees are too tough for fungus.
I suppose there is a downside: intimidation. It’s easy to be intimidated when the surroundings always seem to be saying, “You’re not in shape enough for us.” This is brought home by the curious sensation of catching your breath every 15 seconds, which all of us who are not fitwits experience at high altitudes.
For the last few days I was a guest performer at a summer high school camp out here. It’s a great setup – I play my songs, the kids come up afterwards and tell me about their musical dreams and aspirations, and I encourage them with recollections of going on tour, eating Ramen noodles and sleeping in the back of a Honda.
I flew out of Four Corners Regional Airport in Farmington, New Mexico. For the two of you who know it, it's a little homespun, isn't it? For the rest of you: there’s a single airline, called Great Lakes, and when you hand them your credit card to pay the baggage fee, they go in the back and swipe it with one of those manual swipers (you know the ones: cha-CHUNK, cha-CHUNK) to charge it. I didn't even know those things existed anymore; I used to have one, but even I'm using electronics these days, and I don't own an airline. (If I did, I tell you what, you'd enjoy flying it. Especially if you were a musician with big instruments to carry on board.)
We went through security as a group, walked out onto a silent airstrip (no other planes, desert surroundings), and climbed into the tiniest little bird I've ever seen. No overhead compartments. A single row of seats on each side. Extra barf bags in the seat pocket. This wasn't Orville and Wilbur, but we were a long, long way from jet engines, all the same.
We took off, and here's the thing about tiny planes – since they're not powerful enough to climb above the clouds, you get to look down at the ground the whole way. And I don't know if you've ever looked down at Colorado for an hour, but let me tell you, it's gorgeous.
Until the storm hit.
We had almost made it to Denver when the sun disappeared, the mountains darkened, and what looked like an enormous gray surf slowly, firmly covered us. Storms are unnerving looking up from the ground; when you're right underneath one, like a balloon against the ceiling, you start wondering whether you really weren’t too young to take out that life insurance policy. Clouds don't faze big planes, but to a little plane they're a lot like asteroids in a video game – you try to avoid them, you can't avoid them, you crash into them, and everything shakes like it's coming apart. It was like a theme park ride with no rails. I was delighted not to have eaten any breakfast.
Then – as these things do – it ended, we were on the ground, the pilots were smiling like they had just finished the sports section, and life's problems once again switched over to the mundane: namely, does this airport make a half-decent sandwich?