Staying Connected at Christmas Always Worth the Trip

My sibling and I live 5,000 miles apart, away from our childhood home, yet in spite of the distance we remain close. It helped that we were a family born on wheels. In the sixties, at time when most people wouldn’t take four kids five years apart any further than the corner grocery store, my grandparents and parents loaded the station wagon with, nine bags, eight bodies and one big red ice chest and hit the road. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, we cruised the blue highways from sea to shining seas in our beat up old Rambler.

We grew up believing life was an endless road trip. Consequently we continue to spend an inordinate amount of time in our adult lives riding the rail, flying the sky, and pounding the pavement to remain connected.

Just last week over a span of 24 hours, my youngest sister, Karen, drove to my son’s college game in Minnesota, one evening, and dropped our daughter, Nathalie, off at the Minneapolis airport at 6 am the next morning. Then she drove 7 hours to Sterling to support my mom and middle sister, Sue, as my dad recovered from delicate hip reconstruction surgery in Sterling Rock Falls Hospital. Meanwhile my older brother, Doug, and sister in law, Julianne, picked up Nat at the airport in Cleveland and chauffeured her to her residency interview at Rainbow Baby and Children’s Hospital.

In the meantime, Rush Memorial called her for an interview, so my brother-in-law, Cliff in the Chicago suburbs, helped change her ticket and arranged her pick her up 0’Hare Airport. He will drive her to her appointment at Rush; she’ll take the train from there back to the airport to fly to Utah for another interview.

On December 17th, Gerald and I were supposed to fly from Geneva via Amsterdam to Minneapolis. Our son will pick us up in the car he borrows regularly from my brother-in-law Dick. Then after Nathalie arrives from Utah, we will drive back down to Sterling, via our cabin at Summit Lake, to celebrate my dad’s successful surgery.

“And that my dear,” Aunt Mary used to say, “is love in action.”

One wonders what do people do without family?

Every winter, the McKinzie clan will log miles in the air and on land, braving blizzards, airline strikes and flight delays because Christmas happens whenever, wherever and however we can get together.

Be sure to rejoice in the gift of family especially this holiday season. Safe travels to you wherever you gather. May your wheels keep spinning for another year.

Living in Darkness Without Losing Hope

On, December 21st, the earth tilts farthest from the sun in the Northern Hemisphere. Ah, the gloomy gray Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. No one knows as much about enduring dark days as my Norwegian relatives living on fjords by Narvik, near the North Pole. I, too, have learned how to live with limited light. For the past three years I have lived in darkness as I endure a medical treatment for a multi system, auto immune, inflammatory disease in which my body produces too much Vitamin D. I live in a house with lights off, my skin covered head to toe and hide behind thick black glasses. I lurk in the shadows, coming out at night like Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird.

In one of my greatest moments of despair, I came to terms with the idea that we are all dying. Get over it, girl. As soon as we are born, our cells begin to decay. When I lament that I cannot ski the Alps, run marathons, travel the world as I so hoped after I "retired" from basketball, I focus on what I can do. I can write letters, give pep talks, edit English papers, encourage students, and offer support to family, friends and newcomers to Switzerland.

Right now as I write this, I am flat on my back, listening to my iPod, and typing on a laptop while resting the spine. This is not the life I envisioned. Oh no, I was going to conquer the world straight up. Even though I am often limited to my four dark walls, in a house shuttered closed like Fort Knox, I am amazed at how far the mind can wander. I can brush up on my German or French, strum my guitar, watch Macbeth, (ugh) take an on-line course, and write a blog.

Like a rapper without the bling, I walk to school in my hoody, shades and tennis shoes. Sometimes I lose my footing. But if Stevie Wonder could compose, “ You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and insisted “Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing,” in total darkness, I can make it through another day teaching with the lights turned low.

Everyday I gaze at the painting my dad made me of a lighthouse signaling safety from the stormy black sea. I focus on the pale reflection and pray for those struggling in the darkness; for my colleague suffering from depression, for my dad regaining use of his leg, for my buddy recovering from foot surgery, for a friend battling cancer, for all those people who are facing the loss of a limb, a life dream, a loved one, in moments of doubt and darkness.

Even though the blackness of longest night of the year seems interminable, I still have sunshine in my soul. And miraculously, the more I spread my light to others, the greater the hope, glows within me.

Snow Storms Leaves Passengers Stranded in Europe, Including Me!

Well, that was an interesting voyage. Round trip to nowhere. We left the house before daybreak and ten hours later, returned home in the dark again. We never left the airport, yet felt like we’d travelled for weeks. Since most European countries lack heavy snow removal equipment even a couple, little snowflakes creates huge havoc on the entire continent.

 Lechault's snowed in at home

First bad omen: our taxi got stuck at the stoplight at the corner of our street. While our wheels spun on a patch of ice, a Renault Scenic smashed into the back of a Volkswagen Passat at the adjacent stoplight. Fifty yards further, a Mercedes slammed into the stoplight on the overpass knocking out the traffic signals.

In bumper-to-bumper traffic, we crept toward the airport. As soon as we arrived at the check in gate, a voice announced on the public address system, “Due to inclement weather, the Geneva airport will be closed until further notice.”

Ever optimistic, KLM personnel insisted we check our bags and pass controls to wait at the gate, just in case. But as soon as the Geneva airport reopened, the Amsterdam airport closed. We counted as one after the other flights across Europe to London, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Madrid, and Moscow were cancelled on the departure board. Our flight was rescheduled for noon; fifteen minutest later the red sign popped up, “cancelled.”

Luckily, Geneva is a small airport, so I felt at home in what turned into a mini reunion of the international school. All morning, I chatted with a colleague whose flight to London was delayed. In the afternoon, I caught up with a couple of 12th grade students who were booked on that same ill-fated, KLM flight. We waited for rerouting in a line that crawled forward a foot every fifty minutes. After four hours, we finally reached the rebooking counter, and I offered hopefully. “We could fly to Chicago instead of Minneapolis.”

Fat chance flying anywhere. During the Christmas holidays, flights worldwide were over booked. Forty-five minutes later the airline agent suggested, “Sunday, we have space on a flight to Paris with a stop over in Washington, then Minneapolis.” I collapsed on the counter!

“Pleeeaaasssee, I have health problems, can you recheck for a more direct flight?”

By then, I looked like I rolled under a cement truck, so she searched the computer screen again. A half hour later, she found a Continental flight to Newark then on to Minneapolis.

Last leg, flag down a taxi and head back to our own bed. Passengers across Europe slept the night in the airports. Since snow is a natural phenomenon, the airlines aren't responsible for providing meals or overnight accommodations. It could be worse. In light of everything else that could go wrong in life, it is ONLY a cancelled flight. And when it snows, it is best to be stranded at home.

After the taxi dropped us in front our snow covered house, I discovered students had left a bag of homemade chocolates and a bottle of wine on my doorstep. There is a God, after all.

Bonne nuit. But will I sleep? Yikes, in 48 hours, I am flying over the Atlantic again!

Escalade Celebrating The Pot of Soup that Saved Geneva

Sounds crazy, but the Genevians go gaga over L’Escalade, a tradition commemorating Madame Royaume’s famous soup that saved the city from the Savoyard invasion in early hours on December 12, 1602.

copyright Wikimedia Commons

Genevians held off the Duke of Savoy’s invading forces with a little help from a housewife. According to legend the night guard, Isaac Mercier, rang the church bells alerting the local militia. But the real hero was Madame Royaume, mother of fourteen, living above the La Monnaie town gate. She poured a pot of scalding vegetable broth over the ramparts. The heavy cauldron hit a Savoyard’s head, killing him as he was scaling the wall. The commotion spurred the residents to action. Tables, chairs and other pieces of furniture flew over the wall that night as the Genevians fought to maintain their freedom from Savoyard rule.

Every mid December, the quiet Calvin city comes alive in a carnival atmosphere like a giant street party. The event entails various activities, street artists and vendors serving mulled wine and soup at outdoor stands. Shop windows, decorated in Geneva’s colors of red and gold, are filled with chocolate cauldrons, symbolizing Madame Royaume’s marmite, filled with candy vegetables made of marizipan.

On December 4, the festivities kicked off with the 33rd annual Escalade Race where over 22,000 participants ran or walked four miles up and down Geneva’s snow covered, cobblestone streets.

copyright Wikimedia Commons

During the weekend of Dec. 10-12, the prestigious Companie de 1602, the society founded in 1926, organizes one of the most beautiful historic events in Europe attended by 80,000 visitors. The highlight of the fight for independence over 400 years ago is three-hour torch lit parade led where 800 members in period costume re-inact the scene in Geneva’s Old Town. Musketeers, pipers, horsemen, drummers are accompanied by fire crackers and gun salutes.

Though I have smashed open a chocolate pot or two as tradition demands, we never fully joined the festivity of throngs of people crowding Geneva’s streets. Yet, I can’t help but savor the moral of that little Swiss story. Supermom, Mom saves the day again.

Sad Day For Switzerland When Foreigners Go Home

copyright SVP-UDC

Switzerland the neutral, landlocked country at the heart of Europe is associated with chocolate, cheese, and cozy chalets but underneath this image of paradise, lurks an evil, ugly undertone.

A year after voting to ban the minaret, the symbol of Muslim worship, Switzerland voted for automatic expulsion of foreign criminals. After spending millions on racist posters promoting fear, the right wing SVP party won the campaign. 52.9% of vote and 20 cantons endorsed the proposal. Only six cantons voted against it and they were the French speaking ones, which many Swiss consider a separate country. Instead of hope, foreigners live in fear. Ironically, about 20% of Switzerland is composed of foreigners making up a work force predominately fueled by immigrants.

With illegal alien status in the past, I remember living in fear in someone else’s country. I have always been a black sheep. Pioneers live on the fringes of society struggling for acceptance in new roles. In 1980, as a 23-year-old, I emigrated to Europe for an opportunity then denied in my homeland, to play professional basketball. Since then, I have been at the mercy of foreign - French, German, Swiss - governments as an auslander.

Before marrying a Frenchman, I waited in long lines at city hall to renew my residency permit. I spent sleepless night worrying about obtaining a work permit, and then anguished over renewing it every three, six, twelve months depending on the laws of the country. Not allowed to sit on the bench, I instructed my French team from the stands when denied a coaching permit before legal matrimony. For years without work papers, I was paid “au noir” under the table for odd jobs.

Even today working and living in an international environment, not a day goes by where I forget that I am a guest in someone else’s country. As a white skinned foreigner, I no longer worry about keeping a low profile, afraid of being apprehended in Paris without the proper paperwork proving my legitimacy. In airports and train stations, I still feel anxious that I may be stopped and detained for some infraction.

But my fear is far greater for my darker skinned brother whose differences are more visible. Without steady employment, without family network, and without a Francophone spouse who can interpret the legalities and help fight for one’s rights and dignity, assimilation as a foreigner is difficult even in the best of circumstances. I chose to leave my homeland during a time when a career as a profession female athlete seemed like a frivolous pursuit, but even then, I never doubted, should my venture fail, I would always be welcomed back home. What about those who flee to survive, like political refugees and asylum seekers escaping from totalitarian governments and war torn societies? Or others like my grandfather who came to America in pursuit of a better life?

copyright Gérald Lechault (non SVP-UDC)

In the picture-perfect, postcard image of Switzerland, cows graze in green valleys where tidy villages spill out of a backdrop of spectacular white-peaked mountains. But underneath this placid scene, a storm is brewing. Is Switzerland as tranquil and tolerant as it appears?

Giving Thanks for Basketball

This Thanksgiving along with family, friends, and health, I am giving thanks for basketball. Thanks to Sterling High School, Illinois State University, UW-Stevens Point, the first women’s pro league WBL, International Basketball Association FIBA , and all the other high school, colleges, international clubs and federations that granted women permission to play basketball. Because it wasn’t so long along that girls were confined to the sideline.

Sterling Daily Gazette 1977

I am thankful for Jim McKinzie, the first man convinced I had the right to play. He taught me how to dribble and shoot before a time when dads and daughters playing ball together was apropos. In 1977, he coached my younger classmates and sister, Karen, to Illinois’ First Girls State Championship as co-coach of the Sterling Golden Girls. That first tournament was played at my alma mater Illinois State University where I earned the first college basketball scholarship, playing for the woman who first proved that a women’s heart wouldn’t explode by running fullcourt. God bless Coach Jill Hutchinson. And Shirley Egner, once a rival of mine graduating from UW-LaCrosse, making her mark as DIII national championship coach, who thirty years later shaped my daughter as an athlete at University Wisconsin Stevens Point.

Coach Hutchinson, Coach Egner & Nat

I’ve never been back for an ISU alumni game nor experienced the thrill of playing at my college alma mater in the Redbird Area in front of 10,000 fans. I’ve never even had the honor of racing down that polished wooden floor on my own highschool gym. In my day when girls were finally granted permission to play, we were relegated to the junior high gym.

I spent the first decade of childhood fighting to get on the court, the second decade playing the game, the third coaching competitively abroad, the fourth writing about the sport and the fifth feeling grateful that one day forty some years ago, somebody under my roof in my community, at my college, in my country gave me – a girl - a chance to play a man’s game. To gain that opportunity at that time was a battle; many people fought it every step of our way.

This Thanksgiving weekend, Sterling High School celebrates its first alumni basketball game. I wish I could be there, not to hit jumpers - my playing days ended long ago - but to give thanks. Over a century ago, James Naismith invented the game to bring people together and sent it traveling round the world with the missionaries he trained. I did my own small bit coaching internationally uniting high school players from all four corners of the globe. From starting the first girl’s basketball camp in Sauk Valley to initiating the first alumni game at the International School of Geneva, my life has been about taking the opportunity people gave me and passing it on, so that nobody grew up feeling second best.

This T-Day, no one thinks twice about girls getting sweaty, knocking down treys and going coast to coast. Nowadays, women would never consider blessing the gift of the game along with the bird. Equal opportunity in sport and education is a given. But today at my table, I’m taking time to thank the people who paved the way. Hallelujah, the chance to play ball is a birthright. Even for the female gender. Amen.

Beaujolais Nouveau - Wine, Music and Fireworks

According to my Frenchman, Beaujolais (BOE zioh lay) Nouveau is not a wine, it is an event. Any wine connaisseur will agree that when it comes to wine, older is better than new. The process used to harvest the Gamay grape, involving an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, may be likened to the « fast food »of French viticulture.

Beaujolais Nouveau, a young wine, only six weeks old, should be drunk before May unless it has been exceptional year like the harvest of 2000.

Beaujolais’ marketing success, is in part due to the government stipulation that the first bottle be uncorked on the 3rd Thurs of November. The race to be the first to serve the new wine begins as millions of cases are delivered to final destination by every means available, motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, jet, elephant, runners and even rickshaws. The Japanese, traditionally not big wine drinkers, love this light, nectar. Beaujolais Nouvea is sold in 110 different countries with Japan being the biggest consumers, followed by the USA and Germany.

Wine shop downtown Beaune

Four thousand grape growers cultivate the region of Beaujolais, which is 34 miles long and about 8 miles wide, just outside of Lyon, France’s 3rd largest city. These are the only vineyards, other than the champagne region in central France, where it is in mandatory to harvest the grapes by hand. Sixty-five million bottles, half of the regions total annual production making up one third of the regions entire crop will be sold as Beaujolais Nouveau.

Throughout the world, traditions have developed to celebrate the release of the Beaujolais. The biggest is a three-day party called Sarmentelles, which takes place in Beaujeu, the capital of the Beaujolais region. The festival is named after the French word sarments, which are the cuttings from the canes of grapevine that are burned in town on the eve of the unveiling. Lyon hosts a Beaujolympiades with two days of wine, music and fireworks. Across France, local shops and grocery stores offer a sample sip in shot glasses. Even in the Windy City, chic restaurants celebrate the wine’s arrival in places such as the Chicago Sky Lounge, Bistro Zinc, and Bistro 110.

This light bodied, fruity wine appeals to many Americans’ palates. Since it arrives a week before Thanksgiving, expats abroad often serve it with holiday meal, but not in my house. My husband, appalled that the sacred turkey be accompanied by lackluster wine that is more about marketing than quality, insists on serving the T-bird with only the finest aged Bordeaux.

French law adds to the hype by mandating not one drop may be poured until a minute after midnight am on Nov. 18th. Banners in shops, restaurants, and pubs proclaim, “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!” (New Beaujolais has arrived)

Every November 18th, though my husband is not a Beaujolais Nouveau fan, we uncork a bottle to commemorate a momentous occasion in our family. Twenty years ago, we announced to the world, “le petit Nicolas est arrive!” So I raise my glass to our son, “Happy birthday, Nic, santé!”

Downsizing Hurts the Heart

When I look out in our carport I am still shocked...."Honey, who shrunk the car!" Our new vehicle looks a fourth of the size of our old van, as if somebody waved a magic wand and turned it into a shiny compact model. Now my ride is so sporty and spotless, I am afraid to even turning the key in the ignition.

As empty nesters in a first painful step toward downsizing, we bid a fond farewell the 7-seater packed with memories of mountain drives, trips across France and basketball tournaments throughout Switzerland. But better to shrink the car than the house.

Even though in the absence of children, our home, small by American standards is too big. Our four floors, stacked like building blocks, house only two inhabitants, yet every closet is crammed and every shelf overflowing. I need the space to store all the memories.

My house begs for a major make over, a purge, a clean sweep, but I remain immobilized, as if parting with anything is like pitching a priceless heirloom. Shelves overflow with books marking each stage of childhood from Goodnight Moon to Bernstein Bears to Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings. I find it no easier to toss old board games like Candy Land to Life to Scrabble. Old sweatshirts and t-shirts representing every team my son and daughter ever played for - or even supported - line closets. Random basketballs, footballs, and soccer balls still bounce off shelves.

And the toys! How can I part with Nic’s pirate ship and electric train set or Nathalie’s Little Ponies and Beanies Babies, all 300, that she once so lovingly recorded by name and birth date, replacing the pets we never owned.

Alas even harder to part with are the papers, like my own Taj Mahal of colored binders filled with decades of anecdotes, stories and journals capturing first smiles to first spills from first races to braces, first cars to colleges, stacked from the floor to the ceiling recounting each age, every stage of our lives.

Even though I understand intellectually that my daughter, soon a medial resident, anywhere USA and my son, filled with American college coursework and commitments, have embarked on their own career paths thousands miles away. In my mind, I know they return home as temporary guests before embarking on their next adventure, yet in my heart, I am unable to part with the past.

In every room of the house fleeting reminders of ball games, art projects, research papers, road trips, and special occasions bombard me. As if by discarding anything, I would shatter that perfect illusion in the collective kaleidoscope of memorabilia that made our family unique and beautiful.

Solidarity with a Smile for the Computer Illiterate

I am an electronically handicapped loser with a capital L. Seriously, I would flunk out of Plug-It-In 101. Just looking at computers makes me break into a sweat. My mind is like that little icon going in circles when the network is lost. Yup, completement plantee, that is my brain. I feel so overwhelmed, ideas start spinning. I can never keep up.

First of all, I never follow directions and secondly, I never read to the end of messages.I never learned computerspeak or if I did it is a mishmash of franglais. (French/English) As soon as a warning pops up on the screen, « Time machine could not back up files, » I panic and run for cover. When messages like this flash across the screen, it makes me feel as if I have been thrown into another dimension.

I blame my incompetence on my French husband. Gerald is a tech whiz. He thinks in gigabytes. If he can’t figure out the problem, he has I.T. gurus in his company to help. Me, I have only one recourse, « GGGGGGeeeerrrrrrrraallllldddd ! Hheellpp ! The computer ate my paper. Again !»

The techno-speak terminology baffles me. Maybe if they called the toolbox, the gym bag, I would understand better. Tool bars, navigation panels, HTLM, hyperlink, book mark…how can you have a book mark without a book? Even those little pictures confuse me : guitar, camera, time machine, Adobe reader, toaster (toast Titanium) for Gods sake. I cannot visualize any of them. Where are the photographs, musical notes, movies? And where is the blinking mailbox I know they are out there somewhere, just invisible. I can’t get my head around it.

Organization? Forget it. Documents, files, sub files - I can’t see any of them. Out of sight out of mind. The only thing I can find on a regular basis is the blank document. Then as soon as I fill up the page it disappears in cyberspace, but I know I saved it somewhere !

Gerald makes me jump, shouting over my shoulder, « Pot, it ees seemple logic. »

LO-GIC. L-O-G-I-C. Find a system. Label, categorize, file. Must be rigorous. Must have a logical way of thinking. I don’t have one iota of either.

« First tip of advice, » Gerald insists, « Keep your desk top clear ! »

In our house, we have five wooden and four electronic desks, but no desktops, at least none that I can see. I no sooner clean off one, than another one piles up. I hear Gerald’s voice and I cringe, « It is unsupportable, your maniere of disorder. »

I blame it on an ADHD body and a creative mind. My limbs cannot stay still and my brain never remains idle.

If anyone is aware of a self help group for the technologically impaired, let me know. I would be the first to sign up. « Hello, iPat and i need an upgrade. »

Real Men Make Quiche

Real men don’t just eat quiche, they make it too, at least in my kitchen. Early on in my marriage, after I burnt steak to a crisp, blew the lid off a pressure cooker and scorched eggs, my husband gave up on me and took over the stove. I am no fool. How could I begin to compete with a Frenchman, born with that refined aquiline nose. Betty Crocker beware! My personal chef prepared King’s Lamb, a menu that he claims is NOT difficult, even though he cooks the meat seven hours. I told him the definition of DIFFICULT is different in French than in English.

“Ah, zer is a difference between difficult and time consuming. It takes time, but it is not difficult.”

copyright Philippe Dols

Any working mother would disagree, but who am I too argue. Most women dream of sitting down to a five-course gourmet once in a lifetime, in my humble abode, I eat like a queen every weekend. Gerald says cooking is his creative outlet. My poor hubby, my creativity is depleted writing silly blogs and dreaming up ways to keep hyperactive kids focused in class.

His latest chef d’oeuvres, Tagine de porc Marrakech, Marinade de Lapin aux Epices, Porc au Caramel et au Lait de Coco. How can I compete with that? Gerald insists that the cookbook he follows, « Jules aux Fourneaux «( Jules at the oven,)with recipes written by everyday, run-of-the-mill Frenchmen, who enjoy cooking, is simple. Each dish must be accompanied with a specially chosen wine of a specific grape from a certain region. As a connoisseur of wine, my repertoire is limited to three selections - red,white or rose.

Tagine de Porc…Easy? Pork, garlic, onions, artichoke hearts, Agen prunes, olive oil, apple cidre, honey, Moroccan herbs, cumin, hot peppers, coriander, almonds!

It requires over a dozen different ingredients, not counting salt and pepper. A recipe with more than two parts and one pot is challenging in my book.

Marinade de Lapin needs 18 ingredients, not counting the bunny. It would be easier to go out and hunt meat with a bow and arrow than actually prepare the meal. Ladies, anytime you see the word, marinade, run! It means hours of pre preparation before you even turn on the stove.

No worries if your man is not French, my American brothers-in-law can cook my sisters into the ground. Gently remind your significant other that the best chefs in the world are of the male gender.

I tend to cook by my grandma’s old methods, a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, which is the opposite of precise French cuisine where meat must be tenderized, marinated, basted, rotated and pampered every minute from the market to the table.

My speciality takes a mere twenty seconds to prepare. Slice one fresh baguette, lightly butter and cover with cheese. France at it’s best! Voila le sandwich.

Alas, la cuisine francaise made easy a la Potreezia! Bon appetit.

Celebrate Books The Memory of Mankind

Celebrate Books The Memory of Mankind For the past 29 years during Banned Books Week, late September, librarians and educators unite to celebrate our freedom to read and heighten our awareness of the liberty to treasure the written word.

I fell in love with words in childhood, while raised in a teachers’ family I was exposed to the beauty of books at an early age. I devoured books voraciously until I reached adolescense when reading was decidedly uncool.

I renewed my passion once I moved abroad in my twenties. Words took on a new allure when the written word in English was not readily available while living in a francophone and germanic language country. Then books in my mother tongue were like gold.

For two years, after a severe whiplash accident, my eyes could not focus on words in any language. When I finally recovered and the letters on the page stopped wiggling, I developed an ever greater appreciation for books.

The intellectual freedom to access ideas, to express opinions and to read what I want is my birth right as an American citizen. Protected by the 1st Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, as part of the Bill of Rights, it is a privilege we often take for granted.

Today I spend a part of my day trying to convince teenagers to invest energy in discovering books. Maybe if students know the book I assign to read had once been banned, they will be lured into cracking open the cover.

It is amazing the number of books that have been on the hit list, including some of the greatest books ever written, Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, as well as, the Diary of Anne Frank, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Beloved by Toni Morrison and Color Purple by Alice Walker, to mention a few.

During the Holocaust and other troubling times in history, books were burned, which reminds us of the danger when restraints impose limits on cultures, races and religions.

Though many books are challenged due to language or content, few remained banned, like Adolf Hitler ‘s Mein Kampf which publishers refuse to reprint to prevent inciting right wing extremist’s violence with Hitler’s destructive ideology.

Ironically often times the religious zealots are the first to challenge books in public education even though the freedom to establish and to exercise religion, was the basis of the Bill of Rights on which our nation was founded. Puritans, Quakers and others left Europe in pursuit of place where they would be free to practice the religion of their choice.

Words can never be underestimated. They make humans distinguishable from animals. By comprehending the hopes, conflicts, aspirations, successes and failures of people in time and space, we can better understand the self. Without literature, education would have no articulated spirit and our function would be survival rather than aspiration.

The only positive outcome of making books taboo that I can foresee is enticing rebellious adolescents to turn on to literature, one “bad” word at time.

Back to School in the 21st Century

In the 1930’s my grandma started her teaching day by shoveling a snow covered path to a one-room schoolhouse and splitting wood for the potbellied stove.

Today, we flash identity cards to guards at campus gates, open doors with electronic keys, display notes on whiteboards, take attendance on line, post homework on websites, keep in constant contact with parents, students, administrators and colleagues via the Internet.

Yet back to school in the 21st century has never been more challenging. No matter how long one has been teaching, la rentree is always stressful. To add to our anxiety, our nightly news reports teacher strikes, school shootings and failing test scores in academic settings around the globe. Teachers in France protest the retirement age. (Age sixty sounds good to me.) Students on the West Bank practice safety procedure in gunfire. Where we once learned to crouch under desks during tornado drills for natural disasters, today’s youth are trained to hit the deck to avoid manmade bullets and bombs.

Discipline is a whole new ball game. Chewing gum and wearing torn jeans are no longer a grave offenses Teachers reprimand students not only for talking in class, but for playing games on Laptops and, iphones. Now we confiscate cell phones, iPods and weapons during lessons.

Whereas teachers once caught cheaters red handed copying from a neighbors’ papers, now students take information word for word from the Internet and swear it’s not plagiarism because they got it off Wikipedia. As soon as new tools like Turn-It In are developed, techno savvy kids figure out a way to beat the system.

Text messaging and SMS are wreaking havoc with the language structure, pupils write essays in code. Every line includes “i” in place of the pronoun, “I.” Students can only follow instructions in 20-second increments. Sensory overload from too many electronic gadgets has obliterated their attention spans.

Hyper vigilant, ultra techy kids maneuver around cyberspace with the agility with which we once flicked paper notes folded into mini footfalls across the classroom.

At the touch of fingertips we are immediately connected to data bases filled with student profiles, parent background, and libraries full of facts.

How much information is too much information?

With online courses, videotaped lectures, assignments recorded on phone-in messages, one wonders will the teacher one day be obsolete? Yet, when was the last time the computer offered a smile of encouragement, a kind word or a pat on the back.

We are more connected than ever, but not always in a good way. The teacher’s role, though ever changing, is still invaluable retaining the tenuous link between generations, connecting - school, parent, child - and bridging family and society.

Recently the new superintendent of Chicago suburban high school welcomed back the teaching staff with this message. “I guarantee you my own children will not remember which university you graduated from or how well you know your subject content, but whether or not you connected and met his or her needs.

Perhaps our greatest role in a society that is changing faster than ever due to globalization and World Wide Web is to retain the human bond, to CARE. Communicate, accommodate, respond, and then educate.

I long for the good old’ days of grandma’s one room schoolhouse, when all the teacher had to do shovel the snow, stoke up the fire, clean the chalkboard and teach ABCs.

A Tribute to Michael Jackson - the Tormented Genius

I am dancing around the house to Michael Jackson’s HIStory CD and reminiscing about his life. The World wants to “Rock with You” Michael, as you made your journey from one dimension to another. A year ago on 25 June 2009, just days before his world comeback tour, Michael Jackson, age 50, died of cardiac arrest in his home. It stunned the universe. As if the boy who never grew up could ever grow old and perish. The radio blares Billie Jean and Beat It, the TV shows Michael in concert moonwalking across our living rooms and into our hearts. Michael, the child prodigy, won over everyone regardless of color, nationality, age, and economic level. Since the age of five he entered the music scene as singer with Jackson Five, Michael has fascinated all of us with his artistry as King of Pop.

As part of the baby boomer generation, I grew up with MJ. Every time I hear his songs, I relive the turbulent seventies, a time of social change at the heels of Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam War, at the height of the Cold War and just before collapse of the Berlin Wall. Michael broke the color barrier in music and went on to become the first African American superstar, before Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Michael became a cultural icon. But he was a tortured genius. As a child star robbed of childhood, Michael never grew up. He epitomizes the identity crisis in each of us…androgynous, neither black nor white, a Peter Pan Man trapped in boyhood. Though he sold over 800 million albums, earning wealth and fame with one record breaking hit after another, his personal life was in shambles and filled with solitude. He lost his fortunes in court fighting to acquit his name. Yet one has to wonder. How many adults lived in A Neverland Estate filled with carousel rides and roller coasters and play hide n seek and engage in water fights to unwind?

A cute kid became a great looking guy, but Michael never liked his reflection and endured endless rounds of plastic surgery and skin blanching. But whereas Michael preferred his sculpted pointed chin and compact nose on paste-colored face, to the rest of the world he looked like a ghostly freak show. Yet we all did our best to overlook Wacko Jacko’s eccentricity and forget his transgression, because we love his beat. Like his songs eluded was he Black or White, this Man in the Mirror?

Across all four corners of globe, from NYC to Los Angeles, Paris to London to Peking to Bejing to Moscow fans gathered spontaneously to light candles, sing chorus lines, and dance in the streets. How could someone so loved, died so lonely? Rest in peace, Michael. In the end you defied time, immortalized forever in the sounds you left behind. Thriller, Bad, Scream, I listen to his hits and as if drinking from the fountain of youth, I am magically propelled into the past, remaining ever the adolescent too.

Hiding in the Secret Attic of School

Sixty five years after the anniversary of Anne Frank’s death in Bergen Belsen,  the young girl remains a teenager forever, her memory kept alive by the millions who  read her story.  My 9th grade English class try to comprehend the atrocity of world history. We not only analyse the Holocaust ; we also visit a concentration camp. « It is so depressing, » Invariably students say, « why do we have to study.

 This ? »  Yet, painful as it may be  a young minds, we must bear witness  to the past.

I told the class that they could ever play a game by my rules or  take a test.  « The game starts when we walk outside this door.  No talking.  If you speak, you will be sent back to the class room.  Bring your journal and a pen; leave everything else in the room. » 

Single file, 18 students followed me down the hall, up two flights of stairs and down a narrow passageway under the sloping roof of the old building.  I unlocked the door to an empty room, no bigger than a boxcar.  When I close the shutters on the dormer windows, I say, »This is like the black out of houses during WWII bombings. We are in the secret attic of the school.  Write a descriptive piece using all five senses.  You can imagine you are writing a journal entry during the Holocaust, you can invent a story of the Swiss hiding from their French neighbors, former oppressors, or you can pretend the teachers turned against students and I am  hiding you to save you from being taken away.  You have to survive one class period in without a sound. »

Students slouched against the sloping walls.  A couple boys scuffled  over the three wooden chairs.  Others lay on the floor.  Only the rustle of paper and pens scratching across the lines breaks the eerie silence.  No one spoke.  Even my hyperactive drummer boy stopped tapping. 

The air was hot and stuffy from too many bodies crowded into too small of space, squeezed so close together our elbows touched.  I felt like I was suffocating.

My thirteen-year old students were the same age as Anne Frank when she went into hiding.  How different their lives?  Affluent kids from privileged backgrounds dressed in designer jeans and shirts, feet clad in various name brand of tennis shoes in rainbow colors.  My six girls, a minority, stopped writing occasionally to brush their long, luxurious hair from their bright, inquisitive eyes.

 I glanced around the room at my students -American,  British, , Czech, French, German, Guadamalean, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Scandinavian, Swiss , Trinidadian, -not long ago we were divided by ideology in a world war.  Allies vs. Nazis, the axis of evil, set to annilihate all but the aryan race.  Today we are classmates and friends at an international school without walls in Switzerland, a neutral country without borders.

« I feel locked, not in a room, but within myself, » one Israeli student wrote. « Even though wee are not alone without communication we’re not together.  The intense atmosphere of silence can quickly make the toughest mind fragile. »

« I feel oppressed. »  wrote another.  « My back hurts  from sitting on the floor.»

I cannot help but compare these kids to those of Anne Frank’s time or to my generation coming of age at the heels of the Civil Rights and Women’s movement.  Ipods, Ipads, Internet, cell phones, television, today’s teens connected 24/7 by instant messaging and the world wide web.  When was the last time these children listened to silence, turned out the universe and tuned into the self ? 

These multi cultured, multi ethnic, children are our future.  They are the ones who will stop nuclear war, negociate peace, end terrorism, prevent oil spills and contain other manmade disasters with more cooperation, better technology, brighter minds.

And I the aging teacher will become a shadow of the past, a faded memory of an era when I tried to change lives  the old fashioned way, one idea at a time.

Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks

You can stave off a midlife crisis by following this tried and true advice. Want to turn back the years stay lean and mean, learn something new? How about Downward Dog? Yep, yoga for the flexibility impaired. Never mind that even as a two-year-old, I could never touch my toes. And I have no balance. Though in my mind I define myself an athlete, my body would disagree. I no longer have muscle, so how can they be toned?

During my first yoga lesson, I got stuck. I kept hoping that my instructor would demonstrate an animal or plant shape that I could will my body into. On my belly, back arched, shoulders off the floor: Cobra. Don’t think so. I hate snakes. Hands over head, one foot bent onto knee, balance on one leg. Nope don’t make a good Tree either. Feet and hands on floor, head back, arch back. Bridge, un uh…not for me.

The tenets of yoga insist - go at own pace, never compare yourself to others. I couldn’t help noticing that I was the only salt n pepper haired participant in the group. While young supple bodies around me twisted into pretzel shapes, I remained locked in place like The Tin Man. I peeked at everyone else gracefully posed in a perfect posture, and felt like a loser. It’s hard for old athletes to quit competing.

I still have the ball player build, long and lanky. Ever see a tall Yogi master? Most yogis have the short compact build of gymnasts, not basketball players. Makes sense, the closer to the ground you are, the easier it is touch Mother Earth. My former head of department, a dance specialist, told me 85 % of flexibility is inherited, so we can only improve on that 15%. Go ahead, like everything else, blame it on your parents. It’s genetic.

Remember Gumby? Well I am not Gumby.

My spine has been broken, my feet deformed. My second toes are longer than my big toes, so I clutch land with hammertoes. Just staying upright is challenging. Like a monkey, my crooked toes curl and cling to edge of the yoga mat.

Inhale. Exhale. Right leg back. Inhale. Left leg back. Downward Dog. Exhale Plank. Inhale Cobra. I am sweating, and gasping, and my muscles are trembling and we just started saluting the sun.

The best part is at the end of the lesson. When we finish the session, we lie flat on our back, feet splayed; hands at our sides in the corpse position. Yep, I like this one. I make a good dead body. Only my inhalation and exhalation remind me I am still of this earth. After class, I stand, bow, and float out the door as if otherworldly.

Forget improvements in flexibility, balance, strength, and endurance, at fifty something, I am grateful that I can still breath. I am a good breather. Inhale, exhale. Ommm

I still can’t touch my toes, twist my body into any shape, animal or otherwise, and I am far from enlightenment, but I am starting to feel good about myself. As someone who confuses left from right, north from south and is always lost, the yoga mantra is appealing, “wherever you go, there you are.”

Carpe Diem

As usual, I was moaning about my students, my lumbago, my work load and then I almost lost my bro. Dick was a dead man walking with 99% blockage of not just any old blood vessel, but of the Widow Maker, left anterior descending coronary artery, so named because if the artery gets obstructed the result is usually the Big One, sudden death.

The doctor said that my 54-year-old brother in law has the heart of 70-year-old man and wonders how a man who lives so right, could have a cardiovascular system so wrong. Dick, a non-smoker, exercises daily and eats veggies grown in his own garden. Good habits. Bad genes. His dad died at a massive heart attack with no warning at age fifty-four. Dick’s only warning was strange pain in the neck.

Dick, cheerful, outgoing, athletic, is a wonderful husband and father, a soccer coach, and businessman, who loves the outdoors. He’s always the first to do someone a good turn for no ulterior motive. He donates gallons of blood, gives his Christmas check to the underprivileged and contributes to church and community service projects. A good man.

He’s the kind of guy who takes a thousand pictures of his nephew’s first U.S. college ball game, to capture one perfect shot, so that Nic’s parents in Switzerland could feel a part of that milestone. The guy that buys his in-laws (he named Outlaws) goofy gifts like matching shirts with gaudy fish patterns. That drives 500 miles to surprise a friend. That never forgets a Mother’s Day.

When my sister, Karen, called to explain the crisis, the only time she broke down was when she said, “I would have been lost without Nathalie by my side.” Our daughter, Nat, in her last year of Medical School, moved into Karen and Dick’s basement to help defray expenses. Nat was working ER at the hospital where Dick underwent emergency surgery. Dick, a man of great faith, knows God was watching over him. And Nat was at the right place in the right time doing what she was born do - console, comfort, guide - people through the perils of the medical world, that other planet where they communicate with doctor-speak, another foreign language.

Last week, Dick comforted Nat after a tough day when she came home distraught, after they tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate a Code Blue baby in a case of child neglect. This week, Nathalie held my baby sister’s hand when the cardiologist explained her husband’s alarming test results and requested his living will before the procedure.

Forty-eight hours later, Dick is home with a stent restoring the blood flow to the heart. When people call to wish him a speedy recovery, he doesn’t lament the diseased heart, medical bills, or pills for-the-rest-of-my-life regime; instead, he rejoices in the miracle of being alive. Ever positive and upbeat he tells you, “I guess God still needs me here on earth.” As do his wife, daughters, mom, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, in laws and out laws, neighbors and friends.

In the aftermath of almost losing a loved one, we face our own mortality. Dick inspires us; he always lives each moment as though it may be his last. With a broad grin, The Dead Man Walking wraps you in a bear hug and shouts his motto, “Seize the day, Sista!”

Stranded- Flying the the Not So Friendly Skies of Europe

Living with one foot on two continents, I’ve crossed the Atlantic so many times I thought I had encountered every obstacle that exists from the fallout of delayed, detoured, and cancelled flights. I’ve flown through electrical storms, landed in snowstorms and endured turbulence caused by every kind of weather condition, but I’ve never been grounded due to volcanic ash.  When Iceland’s Eyjjafjallajokul Volcano erupted, spewing ash into the stratosphere, European governments not only grounded planes, but also closed airspace.

Flying these days is not for the weak-hearted.  When northerly winds blew a 4-mile high black horizon of volcanic ash across Europe, 17,000 flights were cancelled daily in the past four days leaving roughly 6 million plus passengers stranded. That is almost the entire population of Switzerland or all the residents of Chicago and Houston put together.

The cloud cover, which caused shutdowns in N. Europe bringing Europe’s largest airport, Heathrow, to a standstill for days, has spread as far south as Italy and Spain and east to Russia and Turkey. Within 48 hours over 90% of French airports ground to a halt and its southern most terminals closed today.

A triple whammy hit France.  This weekend marks the end of a spring break for one zone of France and the beginning for another zone, leaving millions of families stranded on route to or from somewhere. On top of which workers of the SNCF, French rail system, notorious for staging protests, have been on strikes for the past 11 days.

Now almost all airways over Europe are affected and all airports across Europe are closed, which wreaks havoc far beyond the airline industry.

“I’ve worked at Geneva Airport for 43 years, “ Francois said. “And never seen anything like it.  Not only are passengers stuck, but we have nowhere else to store cargo while we wait for trucks to pick up perishable products.”

Chancellor Merkel flew from Washington to Portugal to Italy then drove back to Germany.  She is lucky; a chauffeur is driving her home.  The everyday citizen is stuck sleeping in airports, waiting for information, and fighting for tickets on Euro Star, ferry boats, and buses. 

Right now no one, not even the experts, can predict when the cloud will dissipate or where it will travel next, perhaps, gradually blowing around the world. Air France, Lufthansa and KLM Airlines have begun test flights to determine the impact volcanic ash can have on plane safety.

Travelers will not only worry about terrorist threats, seasonal storms, bird migration, pilot errors, mechanical failures, and air traffic controller mistakes, we will now wonder when the next volcano might erupt.  

My mom said it best,  “We humans think we are so smart, but Mother Nature trumped us all!”

While stranded passengers wait and pray for the big black cloud to disappear, I hope that big bad volcano goes back to sleep, so my college kids and their globetrotting grandparents can fly over in May,

March Madness My Way

Gotta love it! So what if the Americans go a bit bananas over basketball this time of year. What’s not to love about basketball ? I am the biggest fan overseas, though I never fill in the NCAA brackets and rarely know who is rated in the Top 20. I have so many favorites; I always pick a winner. I love the Big Ten, naturlich. I love the overdog, like UConn, and the underdog, like Butler. I love all colors! The red and white of Illinois State, the purple and gold of University Wisconsin- Stevens Point (my daughter’s old team,) the orange and blue of Macalester (my son’s team.)

UWSP women made it to the NCAA Elite Eight. ISU Redbirds got knocked out in the N.I.T. semi finals. I joined the millions checking game results on Internet as soon as my feet hit the floor every morning. And if I burn the midnight oil, I can hook up to the game’s live stats or on-line video (seven hour time difference in Switzerland.)

Every year is filled with drama - broken hearted losers who sacrificed just as much as the ecstatic victors. Everyone anticipates beating the odds, knowing on any given day a Cinderella team can upset the shoo in. That is what makes the Big Dance so exciting.

The way I see it everyone is a winner. In 2010 men follow women’s college ball and boys request female hoop stars’ autographs. Families, friends, neighborhoods, cities and states support female athletes in packed arenas. Today little girls grow up dreaming of starring in their own Final Four.

Yet only yesterday society forbid females’ presence on any playing field. The full court game was considered too strenuous until my former ISU coach, Jill Hutchinson’s, dissertation proved a woman’s heart would not explode by playing 5-on-5 basketball, leading to the official rule change in 1970. Girls never got off the bench, until 1972, when Title IX passed requiring equal opportunity - regardless of race or gender - in publicly funded schools. So what if it took another decade until funding caught up. It’s showtime baby!

We have come a long way from a day when women were relegated to sideline because medical professionals maintained playing sports could cause a girl to collapse in the vapors. Every March along with the players of the day, I applaud the pioneers, coaches like Jill Hutchinson, Vivian Stringer, Pat Summitt, who fought so hard for the rights female college athletes enjoy today.

I have a 54-year-old buddy still kickin’ butts 3 on 3 in Boston, a sister making lay ups in Minneapolis, a daughter shooting hoops between her hospital rounds, a niece in college racing across hills in Wisconsin and a niece in high school playing, get this, tackle rugby.

So go purple, go gold, go, red, white, and blue! Go Pointers, go Redbirds, go Scotts. Go fans. Place your bets. Fill your brackets. I’ll put my money down on a sure thing. Everytime. Women. No one should go home feeling defeated. Win or lose today, women will reign on center court again tomorrow. Go girl! Bring it on. March Madness 2011! Gotta love it !

Nightmares Teaching Today

In theory, teaching looks like the ideal job. All those school holidays. In Europe, every six weeks we have vacation. We even shut down for the week long ski break to hit the slopes. But there is no escape. Even on mountaintops, teachers obsess about how to reach kids. For today’s students, conditioned by instant gratification in a society wired 24/7, attention spans last no longer than 15 seconds, the time it takes to microwave a muffin.

Academic staples like reading, writing, ‘rithmetic? Forget it. Kids learn grammar off twitter, spelling by MSN, and math on calculators. 

At conferences, parents plead, “Rescue our child.”  How do you save a kid that hates to read and write?   Fill the house with books and unplug TVs.  Students that read the most, write best.  Children who were read to in homes with books learn to value the old fashioned printed word.  At the rate we are going, I fear that reading, like letter writing, will become a lost art!

 

At my school, report writing requires a special language degree.  Every trimester, teachers write novelettes on each child’s progress in all disciplines. Between marking periods, we remain on call available round the clock via email and cell phones.

Teaching is tougher than ever.  Even once loved courses, like physical education, are a hard sell.  Getting kids to move these days is like pulling teeth. Why put one foot in front of the other when the world beckons at one’s fingertips without budging an inch? Competing with Internet, wifi, and 1001 channels on television screens the size of football fields; teaching has become a losing battle.

In real life drama, people relocate, families’ collapse, loved ones die; educators deal with the fall out.   Sh** happens. 

Educators fill gaps in a world gone wild. As kids whiz through childhood at a reckless pace during rapid social change, teachers’ roles altered drastically.  Information abounds.  Yet kids still need adults to help interpret the « info-net. » With more attention deficit kids (i.e. regular children craving adult attention not ADD), never has the need for good teachers been greater, the kind of teacher that lies awake at night concerned about students’ well being.  There is no time off.  Teachers are always updating lesson plans, grading papers, counseling kids, answering late night phone calls and early morning emails.

Yet the worst part about teaching is not the day, but the night. In endless nightmares, I thrash about, looking for classroom doors, searching for mid term papers, forgetting locker combinations  (I don’t even own a locker!)  One night I dream that I lost control of a classroom full of ADHD kids while my new principal observed.  The next, I am scribbling on the board with my hand severed at the wrist.  Then, I wake up and start over again.  After a gulp of coffee, I head back on the front line, saving lives, one lesson at a time.  No child left behind.

Supporting the Team Long Distance

I am hung over from the midnight match, manning 2 computers to watch my son’s 3  o’clock college game live on-line at 10 pm Euro time.  Squinting at a stop/start video picture, the size of a deck of cards, on one screen while scrolling down another tracking “delayed” live stats, is almost more frustrating than no game connection at all.

After leading, Nic’s team lost in the last second.  I shout, swear and slap the desk. Why stay up all night to follow a losing team during a losing season especially when my son plays only minutes?  Because I feel honored that he suited up even just to sit the bench.  He offered me a chance to be a part of sport USA, which I sacrificed when  I moved abroad.

Ironically, I left States in pursuit of a better life, at least for a female basketballer out of a job.  When my pro team folded, I flew to Paris where I was so lost I might as well have been blindfolded.  After two years in Germany, a car accident ended my career.  Now, a never day goes by without throbbing between my shoulder blades, in my low back, and at the base of my skull due to a broken spine.  Though it’s been 3 decades since I last drove the baseline, no physical pain compares to my heartache every time I see a hoop.

Fate played a nasty trick. I gave up my family and homeland in pursuit of the right to play basketball, but that privilege disintegrated when my body failed me.  I forfeited my own right, as well as, those of my children.  Whereas Americans relive their athletic exploits through their offspring, I bore my children abroad where sports never mattered the same way.  Even though Nic and Nat, son and daughter of a semi pro volley ball and a pro b-ball player, inherited our athletic prowess, raised in France and Switzerland, they never had the same opportunities as American kids who learned how to give-and-go in kindergarten. 

To send them back to the States to play college is a long shot; yet they rise to the challenge.  Guilty of imposing my goals, I rationalize that being part of a team in the competitive American atmosphere will make them better prepared for the reality of the work world.  But will it?  Or am I merely trying to resurrect my old dream and play again by standing on their strong, young legs?

Had I been able to play a few more seasons in Europe, and enjoy club ball into middle age, would I feel less frustrated?  My interrupted final season, like unfinished business, haunts me with a loss so profound nothing fills it, not coaching, teaching, writing, nor even marriage and motherhood.  Now with my body racked by pain, I lay in bed, staring at the pine ceiling of my Swiss home, praying, « Help me find another purpose. »  From as far back as I can remember, I lived to run, jump and play; the rest was just background music for my own “break” dance.  Each day, like a mantra, I repeat « Focus on what you can do, not on what you cannot!»

Just Do It! 

So I stumble, fight to stand and cheer long distance, «Go team!»  Real players never lose; they learn.  And then step back on the court.

Flying into 2010

Flying into the next decade is for the birds. Literally.  If you are physically unable to expand your wings and catch the breeze, forget flying. Take it from me, frequent flyer extraordinaire; human air travel is perilous in the 21st century.  A normal 7 to 8 hour flight to Europe (depending on tail winds) took a day.

Three factors contribute to today’s aerophobia – natural elements, terrorist threat, and airline personnel.  Summer storms and winter blizzards make flying in and out of the Midwest challenging any season.  Our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed due to the late arrival of our incoming plane from Amsterdam, which was further detained due to « minor aircraft impairment » during a rough landing due to ground conditions.  Over share.  I would rather not be informed about structural damage. At regular intervals a stewardess announced, « KLM/Northwest/Delta Flight 258 to Amsterdam will be delayed another hour.  Boarding in 20 minutes. Oops, no detained 45 more minutes. Suddenly, boarding in 5 minutes.  Passengers were stressed out before they entered the plane.

In theory, checking in on-line is more convenient, but seats on our return flight were « unattributed » because KLM partnered with Northwest, who was taken over by Delta. KLM on-line sign-in sent us to NWA on-line, who sent us back to KLM.  At the airport’s « easy self check-in, » machine, we were still unable to print a boarding pass, so we requested old-fashioned human assistance.  The airline worker at the check-in desk informed us that we would each have to pay $50 for a second piece of luggage and another $50 for seat assignment.  Good try! We argued.  In the end she waved us on, claiming an overbooked flight so seating could only be assigned at the gate.  We joined the long line of anxious flier wannabees at the gate.

After finally receiving our boarding passes, the hostess requested volunteers to take later flights because of lack of available space.   Two hours later, she announced,  « I have just been informed the plane is bigger than we anticipated, so I invite everyone without seating to report to our desk immediately. »  How can a flight attendant mistake a plane’s seating capacity? Between security procedure updates, airline buy outs and cost cut backs, changes are implemented so rapidly that no one knows what is going on, least of all airline personnel.

As airlines struggle to survive by making major cutbacks, long gone are above-the-clouds open bars.  Cocktails now cost $7.  Snacks another $3.  Thank you very much.  Services are replaced by machines.  With on-line bookings, travel agents are a thing of the past.  I miss them, the only earthlings that could decipher the airline jargon. No one understands the lingo- deplane, offload luggage, transit station-all ploys to keep passengers updated without revealing any information because no one knows what is going on.

But as the Christmas Day bomber reminded everyone, the biggest worry is air security.  Terrorist threats abound. With pace makers, belt buckles and body part replacements setting off alarms, everyone is jumpy.  I look forward to the new full body x-ray machines, so we wont have to strip down at every security checkpoint. While we waited at our boarding gate, CNN flashed Breaking News about Obama’s new Homeland Security measures, while an entire regiment of TSA workers patrolled like in a police state.  In air, I added to the excitement by reporting a suspect, a green hooded, fidgety young man who remained in the toilet for over 15 minutes!

Alas, 22 hours after leaving Minneapolis in a blizzard and missing our connection in Amsterdam, we landed in the snow at Geneva where, miraculously, our baggage arrived in one piece in spite of the baggage-handlers’ strike at the airport.

Murphy’s law best describes air travel in the 21st century: what can go wrong will go wrong. My advice: Take knock out drops before boarding.  Squeeze into spouse’s carry-on luggage. Wake up only after arrival at the final destination. Enjoy!