Untitled Document

10 March 2001

Asleep in Seattle

We were airborne just before ten on Northwest flight 0946 en route the Mainland. Estimated time of arrival at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, SEATAC of legend, is just before six.

Though we may not be going there. The Captain of the Heavy came up on the PA and helpfully pointed out that Seattle Center is reporting dense fog and we may not land there, maybe Portland or some other field.

That would shoot the hotel, and the early check-in and the meetings and the connections. Other than that, it was fine. c. We dined before departing at the Monterey Bay Fish Company

All I wanted was a burger somewhere, but the Staffers love to dine on the Department's nickel, so there we were. I order the cheapest thing on the menu, a Caesar salad, and left it at that.

Jack and I were in the Sedan, and we peeled off down the Kamahameha Highway to the on ramp to H-1. Just before we got on I had a glimpse of the entrance to McGrew Loop, the Navy housing area where we had first lived in these lovely islands. The harbor was a dark presence behind the palm trees and the little bungalows. A wave of memories swept over me, not melancholy, but I wondered if I would ever see this place again.

The dreaded fog blows out and we are not diverted to Portland. Instead, we land right on time and SEATAC was deserted. Jack discovered a slightly bemused lady of a certain age. She was impeccably groomed. She had been greeted by a man in a turban and she was uncertain of her course of action. She liked Jack in his suit better than she liked the foreign man. She stayed with us, trying to make up her mind on whether she should take her ride with him. We teased Jack that he always found the ladies. Val had secured our ground transportation, a Chrysler min-van, and we bag-dragged out into the pre-dawn darkness. No one had slept on the flight, and my eyes felt like cotton balls.

It is raining, on and off, but that is only to be expected. I navigate for Val as we attempt to orient ourselves to the Airport Marriott. We had originally been requested to visit the nice folks at Boeing, so we had booked quarters at a place adjacent to the plant. It turned out to be pretty nice.

Dawn was coming up as we arrived, and our first meetings were an hour away in Bangor. Early check-in was no problem, but my body was.

I looked at the suitcase when they brought it to the room. The clothes were hopelessly wrinkled, pressed into great chasms.

I could have slept and looked longingly at the bed. But I cleverly missed the setting on my watch, did some desultory ironing, took an incredibly hot shower and was dressed and seated in the lobby an hour before I had to b e there.

I cursed myself for failing to set the watch correctly. I could have been asleep, however briefly, in Seattle.

I would tell you what we did later that morning when we were all on the same time zone and in the same van, but as they say, I would have to kill you.

But like Shanghai, the operatives of one of the concerns took the Staffers away and Val and I were left to our own devices. We intended to take the van on a car ferry and travel to the Space Needle, but in the end we settled for a roadside tavern and a hamburger.

That was as much as we could handle, and when we got back to the motel we bade farewell in the lobby. And by three in the afternoon, I was Tango Uniform, tits-up, asleep in Seattle.