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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday October 22, 2001 Volume III Number 43 |
FOCUS - Zippers and Pockets
All along they’ve been telling us to be patient. That travel will involve delays. That the new war is like none other ever fought, and that victory will perhaps be a long time in coming, and tricky to define.
Patience is the ability to endure in a state of calm. The ability to bear pain or annoyance or provocation without giving in to the urge to strike back. It’s a kind of serenity, waiting for an outcome or result without a need for haste. It’s the refusal to give in to the shot from the hip, the first impulse, the lightening fast sarcasm, the reflex punch. It’s biting your tongue. Holding your temper. Counting to ten.
And it’s easier said than done. (I love clichés.)
This week we did our patriotic part. We purchased some of those low fare plane tickets and rolled out at four-thirty in the morning to get to the airport two full hours before departure time. It’s dark at four thirty. Really dark. So I stood outside for a few minutes just looking up at the black velvet sky and the Milky Way swept across the two horizons like a fluorescent cloud of dust and the stars shone bright and a sliver of silver, the crescent of a new moon faintly illumined one corner of the heavens. I took a deep breath of chilly morning air, and wondered how many weeks before we lose daylight savings time. October is the toughest time of year to get up early. But the starry sky makes it worth the effort.
We left so early that we stayed ahead of morning rush hour. We slipped into a slot at the discount parking lot off site and boarded the shuttle to the terminal. “Continental,” we told the driver. “Continental it is,” he said, cheerily for this time of day.
From the curb, we lugged our suitcases up the escalator to the Continental check in counter and on the way, walked by a folding table with a uniformed officer going through the luggage of a scrappy looking passenger. I thought, “Well, there it is, America on Alert.” At first I felt sorry for the guy, delayed and exposed. But then I concluded, “This is the price of safety.”
The Continental agent was bored. No line. We walked up directly to the counter, and handed him our Continental tickets. No E-Tickets this time. We had hard copy. He took one look at the tickets, then at us. He shook his head and explained, “You don’t check in here. You’ve got Continental tickets, but they were sold to you by Northwest. You’ve got to check in there.” I tried to control the reflex roll of the eyes. But it was too late, I gave him an unintentional tough guy signal of annoyance. He picked it up. “I am sorry sir, but the walk isn’t that bad. Take the escalator down and go across to the next terminal where you will find another escalator up.”
“Thank you,” I said as I took our tickets back. But I didn’t really mean it.
After the hike, schleppin’ our bags packed with yet-to-be-delivered wedding gifts for our newly wedded daughter and her new husband of two months half-way across the continent, we reached the top of that escalator. Apparently we were not the only Americans aware of rock bottom fares. Here were legions of other brave souls willing to board jetliners, prepared personally to take down any suspicious characters who might even appear to be headed for the cockpit with ill-intent, counting on armed marshals as back-up, wanting most of all, by taking to the air, to contribute to the well-being of our sputtering economy. Doing our part, we were hardly alone. It seemed that all of San Diego County showed up before breakfast at Terminal 2.
The crowd cued up in lines, snaking around the terminal in an orderly way. People were surprisingly good natured. “Excuse me,” I said as I crossed line after line rolling two heavy suitcases on ball bearing wheels. They smiled, and moved aside, and waved me through because, I guess, I am a fellow American and it is a new day. We Americans like each other again, and we’re pleased to be courteous and helpful.
The Northwest line was mercifully short. The vast majority of this crowd was headed to the Hawaiian Islands. Their gray hair and flowered shirts were the first clue. The giant air-busses painted HAWAII in shades of pink and lavender and teal with orchids on the vertical tail confirmed it. Our destination was Indianapolis via Detroit. Go figure. Perhaps a bit less exotic, but we were no less eager to depart than our Pacific Island counterparts. At the desk, the Northwest agent confirmed that while our tickets indicated Continental, we would fly Northwest. He punched up our boarding passes.
“How many bags are you checking today?”
“Four.”
I started to lift the heavy bags onto the check-in scale when the agent raised his hand in a signal to hold and he said, “Please follow me, Mr. Kemp. We will be inspecting your bags right around the corner.”
He didn’t ask permission. He didn’t apologize for the inconvenience. He didn’t explain that his procedure was in place because of an extraordinary national emergency. He gave no projection of estimated delay. He pointed in the direction of a uniformed guard and simply said, “Follow me, sir.”
So I did.
Our
heavy suitcases were lifted on to a folding table, the kind you’ll see at an
elementary school sign up table, in the presence of, well, I’d say about two
thousand people in the cavernous terminal lobby, all standing patiently in line
with not much more to do than watch the guards proceed. My first guess was
that this public display of security measures had more to do with appearances
than any real attempt to locate contraband or explosives or box-cutters.
As I stood there with my wife, early in the morning, with nary a single cup of coffee under my belt, on display before hundreds, maybe thousands of my fellow San Diegans, puffy eyed, I felt about as conspicuous as I ever have in my life. I was embarrassed. Annoyed. Self-conscious. Carolyn’s better nature shone through. She joked with the inspector. Comments about the way she folded the underwear, talking about the gifts for our newlywed children, that sort of thing. The inspector, knowing, I guess, that we were long-shots as potential terrorists, joined in the banter. But he didn’t miss a pocket or a zipper. He opened them all, every one, fingering them as though they might be hiding something terrible, squeezing, holding up to the light, the shirts, the shaving equipment, the deodorant, the toothpaste, the socks, the briefs, and he seemed to find particular amusement when he located Carolyn’s undergarments. Me, I was simmering.
Only once or twice did I glimpse at the crowd waiting their turn to check in or pass through the electronic scanners. But when I did, people would look away, not wanting me to know they’d been watching, I guess. Others truly did appear oblivious. But then there were several others who made intentional eye contact. They’d offer a slight smile and a nod. They seemed to want to say with their eyes that they were sympathetic with my plight and that they had enormous regard for my willingness to be subjected to such humiliation in the name of public safety and that for them, I was right in there with the firefighters and military men and women doing their part for our great country and it made me feel a little better.
Sort of.
One of the inspectors could tell I was annoyed. He tried giving me some good news. He said, “Do you see that long line of people waiting to walk through the metal detector?”
“Uh huh,” I answered, like I was moved by his keen sense of the obvious.
“People who have their bags inspected don’t have to wait. You’ll just follow me when this is over and we’ll get you both right on through. No more waiting.”
Gee. I won the consolation prize. I nodded, trying to look grateful.
A couple others were required to join us at the folding table. Each of them, traveling alone apparently, had only one bag. They packed light. None of them ferrying wedding gifts, I guess. But our guy, still chattering with Carolyn, took his sweet time. The others were in and out in a flash.
Carolyn complimented him on the way he carefully replaced all of the items neatly back into the bags, perhaps even a little better than he’d found them just moments ago. As he snapped shut the final suitcase, he smiled and thanked us for our patience (such presumption, I thought) and once again asked that we follow him.
Sure enough, we bypassed the horrendous line went directly to the front, and immediately, we were waved through the metal detector which both of us passed, neither of us triggering that awful alarm, and even the guy in camouflaged fatigues, with an menacing automatic rifle slung over his shoulder at the ready grinned and nodded as we walked by to the terminal gate.
All the way out we speculated on what percentage of the passengers that morning were subjected to this special treatment. Just doing the math, number of inspectors over available time over total number of travelers, we figured the ratio would necessarily be rather low. Then we wondered how it was that we got so lucky; there was no convincing theory. Did we look suspicious? Did we say something?
When we handed the attendant our boarding pass, one more time, she, like the gentleman at the check in counter, picked us out of the crowd, and asked us to step over to a folding table, like the one at the check in counter, and informed us that our carryon bags would be inspected, but that it would only take a moment. We looked at each other and in unison rolled our eyes. The same uniformed guy appeared out of nowhere, the guy who went through our check in luggage just moments earlier, acting as a professional, all business, as though he’d never seen us before, in his crisp blue collar and navy blue tie complete with a badge and a matching cap cocked just slightly to one side, a cap that gave him the look of authority. He proceeded to open our carry-on bags with the same precision we’d witnessed out there in the public forum, carefully pulling on every zipper, reaching into every cavity he could find, holding this and that up to the light just to be sure.
And then he pulled out a hand held device that looked something like a magic wand with a battery case for a handle and he told Carolyn to spread apart her legs and hold her arms in the air, which she did. And there was my wife, a person who in just about anyone’s estimation would be the last candidate for terrorism, being searched for hidden weapons. When he patted her down just in case his magic wand had missed something, well, that’s when I came close to losing it, this thing we call patience, it almost left me entirely, and the impulse to grab the little rascal in uniform and tell him to get his hands off my wife hit me and I jumped forward.
Carolyn gave me one of those looks you get when you’ve been married a long time. It said, “I know exactly what you are thinking. Don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t say it. Be a good boy and take your medicine and let’s not make a scene. You’ll not only embarrass me, you’ll ruin this trip, and anyway, I want us to see our kids and deliver these wedding presents. So buck up big guy. Deal with it and then let’s get on that airplane.”
She said all that with a glance.
Reason got the better of me and I stood firmly in place while he finished his government ordered assignment.
And then turned to me.
I spread ‘em. He waved his magic wand and patted me down. Then he pointed to the door and wished me well. “Have a nice trip,” he said.
* * * * * *
So I did.
The rest of the flight was blissfully uneventful. There’s a refreshing courtesy in the air these days. It’s not only a wave of patriotism and love of country, flags everywhere, signs and posters decked with the prayer, “God, bless America.” But there’s also a renaissance of etiquette. People opening doors for you. Stepping aside. “Pardon me,” and “please,” and “thank you,” and “let me give you a hand.” All with a smile and a nod. It’s a welcome rebirth of pleasantry.
And the kids were pleased to be reunited with their wedding gifts.
* * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Patience is a byword these days. It’s not easily learned. We spend our time hurrying to the next whatever. We don’t like interruptions. Delays. Intrusions. We keep our boundaries well defined, and we want those boundaries respected.
But in this new era of angst, we are ready to consider new priorities. We are eager to embrace a new etiquette. We have seen evil. It’s not limited to explosive cinematic images. We know it is real. We don’t like it. At all. We want something better. For ourselves. For our nation. For our children. For our world.
We’ve got to be willing to wait. And as I learned in a California airport, watching my own bags opened for inspection in the presence of a public audience, there is a price to be paid for security.
You may wish for a speedier return to normalcy. You may wish that the enemy would quickly be brought to justice so that the nation might move on to other priorities.
You and I need to learn patience. To learn it well involves some stretching. Some discomfort. Some self-examination. Some healthy introspection.
Bring it on.
We’re learning to think beyond ourselves.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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