I imagine there are several people that read these bloggs that think I am intelligent. After all, I was valedictorian of the Class of 1955 at CVHS, went to college and became a respected doctor and had three wonderful, "smart" children. Doesn't that make me sound smart, too. Well, let me tell you a little story about how "dumb" some smart people can be.
Several years ago, when my wife Diana could still walk normally, we took a long awaited trip to see the Greek Isles. The plan was to fly from New York to Athens, visit the city for a couple of days, and then proceed to the Port of Piraeus where we would hop onto a ferry boat that would take us to the first of the isles that we had planned on seeing. It was beautiful. The waters of the Aegean were bright blue and crystal clear, the sky was blue and cloudless and the temperatures were just pleasantly warm. We were in for a wonderful 12 days of seeing the antiquities of the Greek Isles.
We stopped the first afternoon, walked off the huge ferry boat onto the beautiful Isle of Tinos. We walked a few hundred yards and found a hotel that had vacancies, settled in, and then wandered around the quaint little fishing village perched on the edge of the cliffs that surrounded the harbor. That evening we had a delicious dinner of fresh seafood, sitting on the terrace of the restaurant overlooking the harbor of Tinos, and drinking several glasses of native Greek wine We thought we must be in Paradise.
The next several days were very similar: Ferry boat, island, hotel, sightseeing, dinner and to bed, dreaming of the next day's adventure. We saw the islands of Mykonos, Santorini, Delos, and Crete among others. My approaching Alzheimer's keeps me from remembering the names of all the rest of the idyllic places we saw. From Crete, we had reservations to fly back to the airport in Athens, from where we would climb on a big TWA 707, and fly back to New York.
Our short flight back from Crete was an early morning flight, and we got back into the Athens airport about 8 a.m. Our flight to JKF was scheduled for twelve noon, so we had four hours to sit peacefully in the transient lounge and read our library books, comfortably aware that we had successfully completed one of the nicest trips we had ever done.
Now you have to keep in mind that we have a couple here who are reputedly very intelligent. After all, one the Valedictorian of the CVHS Class of 1955 and a PhiBeta Kappa from the University of Kansas ( my sister always said that I had the brains, but she had the common sense) and the other a Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oregon. How much more brain power could you want, sitting in the departure lounge of the Athens DOMESTIC airport. The problem was that these two geniuses with a combined IQ of about 270 had totally forgotten that there was a DOMESTIC Athens airport and an INTERNATIONAL Athens Airport, and the big TWA 707 was leaving from the INTERNATIONAL and we were patiently waiting in the DOMESTIC.
With tickets in hand we approached the Gate Attendant, who not terribly politely, informed the two stupid Americans that they were in the wrong airport and their big old TWA 707 was getting ready to take-off from the Airport which was a couple of miles away. We grabbed a taxi, but as the taxi approached the appropriate airport, we saw the 707 taxiing down the run-way and take off for JFK without us.
In spite of that, we did stayed married for many more years, but usually never brought up that aspect of our wonderful trip to the Greek Isles when entertaining our friends. After all, no- one wants to admit to being that "dumb".
5 comments:
Finally! Something new to read on the blog. And it was an entertaining confession of feeble-mindedness from a supposedly smart guy. So....it should encourage all of you out there who are afraid of appearing less than brilliant to start writing your thoughts and memories from the good old years at C.V. I, for one, am anxious to read your tales of the past, and I promise not to critique anything about it, only enjoy!
Thanks Wayne. Makes you feel like a dope...right?
I'm really envious of that journey (and the stupid things that I have done in my life make your mistake dwindle to nothing!)
I once wrote a band piece based on folk songs from the Aegean islands. I said at the time that one ambition was to actually visit the islands and hear those songs performed by local musicians. That is still in the future for me.
Wayne, traveling on business a few years ago my company in California got some really cheap tickets for my trip from Nashville, TN to Charlotte, NC.
I complained about the fact their cheap tickets took me through Chicago, a trip of 975 miles instead of 340 miles direct. However, it was not until I was on the ground at O'Hare airport that I noticed that the flight to Charlotte was leaving from Midway airport, 25 miles away. The $50 cab ride ate up the "savings" on the ticket and I caught a direct flight home from Charlotte.
Always look closely at all of the details on your tickets...forgot what else I was going to say.
Wayne, how soon were you able to catch another flight? Traveling can be unpredictable at best. On one of our trips to Australia I figure we huffed our four large suitcases on and off airplanes at lease ll times. We flew from portland to LA and waited to leave in the evening for Sydney. After a long wait on the airplane we had to collect our luggage and go to a hotel as something was wrong with the plane. We lost a day there. The next day we flew to sydney, got off and went to a smaller airport to fly to Perth, Australia which was another 5 hours but went with a hitch. Then on the way home things were going fine, we got to sydney from Perth, no problem. As we were sitting in the sydney airpot waiting to leave they announced that something was wrong with the airplane and for us to collect our luggage and to go to a hotel. Another day lost. Then when we arrived in California, we had to stay in a hotel another day before they could get us home. Another day lost. I sure am glad we were not on a fixed schedule.
Well, Naomi, it seems you had an even worse time getting home than we did. To answer your question, our flight was supposed to be on a Saturday, and I did have to go back to work on Monday. We were lucky to get on another TWA flight the next day, Sunday, and all it cost was $50 per ticket to change. If we had not been able to get on the Sunday flight, then we would either wait until the following week-end or pay a full fare on another airlines.
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