December 4, 2012
by John Shouse
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I was looking through some old emails to find something else, and stumbled across this piece I wrote in another life. 1999 or 2000 …. or somewhere about then. It says LA. Story – Part II. I liked this piece when I wrote it, and am glad to have found it. I was in LA on a business trip, but took a couple of extra days of personal time just to explore since I’d never been there before.
LA Story – Part I dealt with a Friday late night drive up the PCH to Malibu, I was in a white Mustang convertible with tunes blaring and the top down, and it was a glorious trip Then a spur-of-the-moment decision to drive up north out of L.A.early the next morning, Saturday, through Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley, all the way up to Sequoia National Forest and back. But I think that story, as written, may be lost forever. It was a great day from start to finish.
So Part II, here, deals with my experience at the LAX airport Sunday morning, waiting for my return flight to Nashville. Every one of these vignettes to follow is true… either entirely or mostly…. based on observations as I was just killing time very early that morning on a bench, curbside, at the airport waiting for a later flight. Hope you enjoy ….
I’m sitting at the airport in Los Angeles, LAX, waiting for my flight back to Nashville. For reasons unnecessary to explain, I ended up getting up at 4:30 LA time after a whopping 1 hour of sleep. I needed to get to the airport, turn in my rental car…. a white Mustang convertible … and get checked in for a 7:00 AM flight. HOWEVER, I ended up not being able to get on that flight (I was on stand-by, and would have had to pay an upgrade anyway), so I sat waiting for the next non-stop to Nashville at 11:35. Since the airport policy is that you can’t check your bags more than four hours prior to flight time, and since there was no really good inviting place to sit INSIDE, I ended up sitting outside on a bench at the curb, experiencing early morning LA.
I watched the sun come up over the smog, definitely a weird sight for a small-town boy. It was interesting that when I got to LAX a couple of days ago, I was dressed for a business meeting in suit and tie, and I was walking through the airport like a man on a mission. Today however, I was in jeans and hiking boots and comfortable Hawaiian shirt, and was in no particular hurry to get anyplace in particular. The other day in the suit I was pretty left much alone. Today, taking my time and dressed casually, I was approached by three separate people looking for a handout.
Where I was sitting outside passing the time, I had a ringside seat as a variety of travelers showed up (many seemingly in a stressed out rush), and dealt with their own minutiae of arrival and preparing for air travel. As a confirmed “people watcher” this was not a wholly odious task. It was rather enjoyable actually, if admittedly somewhat voyeuristic. Here is my version of their stories. Continue Reading →