4.7.03
Happy Fourth of July from Ireland! I suppose I will lift a pint of....Budweiser this evening...Miller Genuine Draft? Ahhh perhaps not.
Finally found a cyber-cafe in Dublin where I can hook up my own little laptop and post the stuff I have already written. Actual Ireland Accounts coming soon!
CHICAGO June 24, 2003
Last day in America. Feels like....not much like anything. An absense of high emotion or drama. It is simply time to go now. I don't feel hollow or saddend or too excited. Maybe when I check my bags at the curb (oh, it's going to be "kerb" now, isn't it?) and get to flash my passport again, riffling through the pages does have a certain Pavlovian effect.
Yesterday was another loung-y day that included a walk downtown, a water taxi atop the Chicago river and then a descent into The Billy Goat Tavern, famous for two reasons. It is directly beneath the Wrigley Building, under Michigan Avenue and a traditional haunt of members of the press from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. Dark and sticky and old with enlarged bylines of local writers on the wall. A hall of fame right there under the boulevard. It is genius that it has never closed. Open 24/7 for ever and ever, amen. It is also known as the place from the Saturday Night Live sketch "No pepsi! Coke!" with John Belushi in his heyday. And life imitated art that had imitated art - Tom ordered a diet coke for me and attempted a pepsi for himself. "WHAT?!!! NO PEPSI! ONLY COKE!!! WHAT YOU THINKING???! COKE ONLY!!!" A chagrined Tom under the continuing barrage. "NO! NO! COKE ONLY!!!!.
Of course I am sorry Tom had to be so publically chastized, but the vigorious defense of Coca-Cola was a cool pleasure after days and days traveling the Heartland with Catherine and having to suffer the endless "Aww, we don't have Coke here, is pepsi ok fer y'all?"
And home again for an easy evening that included a spanikopita I made and some strawberries in balsamic vinegar and black pepper - both recipes retrieved from www.epicurious.com. Daniel and Tom made for very nice guinea pigs.
And today, Wednesday, I tagged along with Daniel to the University of Chicago, where he is a big shot faculty member. I hung out at the bookstore to buy some reading materials for the plane (The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy "...a work that is darker and more visionary, a novel with the unstoppable momentum of a classic Western and the elegiac power of a lost American myth." How's that for an exit? Also bought something low and trashy - but I certainly won't say what exactly.)
Just a few more hours until we schlepp me and the bags out to O'Hare and sit and wait and wait and wait for borading and for good-bye.
Good-bye America! I'll come back and visit sometimes!
ok
gtg
O'HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - gate M8
17:45
Stressless drive to the airport - easy-as-pie check-in - settling down at good old M8 with the books, the magazine (Ms.) and two bottle of water. And an unattended black leather satchel sitting on a large cylindrical garbage can opposite my chair...unattended. Not only did I eye it carefully for a few minutes, I also clocked a Transportation Security Administration employee watch the unattended black leather satchel from a few seats away. She wasn't really watching as closely as I was. She was watching CNN on the overhead monitor, reading a newspaper and listening to a CD. Cool, I thought, she's playing it very cool and undercover-like. Chillin' and scoping out all the suspects that were so obviously lurking around the unattended stachel and myself. But then I realized she was on a break and hadn't noticed the death bag at all.
Should I walk up to the gate attendants and inform them (like a good patriot) that we here at M8 were close to having an incident? Would I receive a Presidential medal of commendation for saving the lives of the countless many from the Director of Homeland Security?
Before I could make my move, a Chicago Airport Security officer sauntered by, past the unattended you-know-what towards the gate. Good, I thought, he'll do a walk-by and then casually call in the SWAT team and the bomb dogs. On his way back through M8, towards the terminal, I caught his attention.
"Sir? Excuse me, Sir?"
"Yessss?"
"I have been here about 15-20 minutes and so has that unattended bag there", I said in my 'we're all on the same side here, pilgrim' voice.
"Well, let's take a look here." He proceeds to a)touch the bag without surgical gloves and b)unzip and unvelcro pockets and pouches.
"Heh heh", says I. "Unattended black luggage in an airport and all that (jazz). Just thought I ought to point that out to....someone.
"Wellllll, it jes' appears to be garbage. Som'body don't want it no more. Don't worry. It's jes' garbage.
"Okay...If you-I just thought..."
And don't come near me with your contaminated hands, SARSboy.
And off he saunters.
But a few minutes later he comes back.
"I'll jes' disPOSE of this somewhere else fer you", and retreats again with the antrax-treated carry-on.
What can we learn from this?
I have long maintained that we are, ultimately, all doomed, and that to worry over things that I simply cannot control, such as say, the airplane I am about to board falling from the sky in a brilliant fireball, is time and energy elsewhere better spent.
While I observed the satchel, I thought - I am five feet away, in the direct line of the explosion. Or, I am close enough to have already breathed in the deadly spores of whatever 10 minutes ago. There is no hope. We are doomed. It is quite liberating. I speak only for myself here.
Still, Do I have to watch? Do I have to experience a "highly trained" member of the TSA not do her job?
"Are you carrying anything sharp in your carry-on luggage?"
"Has anyone other than yourself handled your bags?
"Do you mind us illustrating the utter hopelessness of Homeland Security protecting you from "all domestic acts of terrorism?"
I'll give you a domestic act of terrorism - how about that shrieking toddler over there who might be seated near me. Fireballs. Fireballs.
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After traveling there in 2001 and 2002, Miss Thea is off to Ireland once and for all.
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