First Class Drinks...Christian School Friends and Flying Pills

When Legare was a sophomore in high school, his Mock Trial team (THE team in our state) won the state championship (again) and prepared to head for the national competition in Minneapolis. I was sort of a "room mother" for the team and helped to organize the travel arrangements.

It was not long after 9/11, and we had all sorts of travel issues. Some of the kids had never flown and were nervous. It took 12 hours to make what should have been about a five hour trip from Charleston to Minneapolis, and the return trip home was even worse. As we were about to board the hotel shuttle headed for the airport on Sunday morning, I got a call from the airline saying that our plane was grounded with a hydraulic fuel leak and they wouldn't be able to get us out that day...AT ALL.

Honestly, I thought somebody was playing a trick on me, but it was NO trick. The shuttle was about to leave and we had no hotel rooms so we went on to the airport. I walked up to the counter with 23 tickets in my hand...a desperate look on my face and tears in my eyes! We'd been traveling since the Wednesday prior and three of our days in Minneapolis had been in a grueling competition. We were all very tired. Long story short...they split us up all kinds of ways in an effort to get us home. I'd be flying with 10 or so of the kids who didn't have parents with them and the other kids....my two included...would be on standby with their parents.

You can see from the photos that everybody did his or her best to pass the time. (Legare has his mouth wide open in shock and dismay as somebody from Maine tells him that they've never had sweet tea.) As things worked out, a security breach in Cincinnati threw everything MORE out of whack and about eight hours after arriving at the Minneapolis airport, they put me, my charges AND the entire standby group on the same plane for Atlanta.

Hank and Lorelai found themselves in first class. Legare was a few rows back, and I was in the last seat on the last row of the plane. Did I mention that this was all happening on MOTHER'S DAY? I was sure that Hank was not going to let me sit WAY back there on MY Day and sure enough, just about the time we started to leave the gate and I thought that all hope was lost, he comes striding down the aisle....my knight in shining armour...to give me his seat. We watched our connecting flight in Atlanta depart the gate as we arrived and had to wait there for a few MORE hours before we loaded our exhausted selves onto the last plane of the day out to Charleston around 11:00 PM.

Lor was about 11 at the time. The next week, I was driving her and a group of kids from her school (the Christian school) on a field trip and she was telling the story of our travel adventure. It went something like this...My daddy and I were in first class and my mom was in the last seat on the last row of the plane and she was having a terrible Mother's Day. She was stressed trying to get all of us home and doesn't like it when her plans don't work out right and some of the kids didn't have parents with them and everybody was really really TIRED! My daddy stayed in first class long enough to get the FREE DRINKS then he took my mom's seat in the back and let her sit with me. (I could only hope that the children thought the free drinks were Mountain Dew or Pepsi and NOT Bourbon...I waited all night for a parent or someone from the school to call.)

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have imbibed since I was responsible for other people's kids, not to mention an employee of the school district on a school trip, but apparently Hank wasn't QUITE as selfless as I'd originally thought. At least one of us was in a "good place." (Although I DID have my "flying pills.")