Will Fly for Food - East Coast Edition

One of the famous sandwiches from Primanti's Bros. in Pittsburgh, PA.

If you're a flight attendant bidding your trips for the month, or more likely, putting in your list of trips for the next day - trying to pick up something better than the trip you already have - how do you decide what to bid?

If you will be commuting home after your last flight, like most flight attendants in Philadelphia, you're first consideration will be to make sure the trip gets in an hour before your last flight home.  Secondly, you probably want to pick up a trip that pays a decent amount of time.  You may also consider the quality of the hotels on the overnights, how many "legs," or flights, you'll have to work each day, if there's a long overnight in a city you like or a city where you can do something fun, like meet up with an old friend.

Those are all valid and perfectly logical reasons to sort through the dozens of possible trips each day.  But once in a while, after a long day of dealing with the cranky traveling public, encased in a narrow metal tube filled with recirculated air for twelve hours, you're just craving something good to eat.  You want to eat at a particular place, eat a specific local dish or meal, or at a unique restaurant you really enjoy.  Sometimes, you're just flying for food. 

I thought I'd list some cities that I regularly flew and stayed in, where I'd look at the three letter airport codes on a trip sheet - LGA, ORD, DUB, SAT, MSY, BWI, SEA, PIT - and my simple male brain could only think of what delectable food I could eat in that town.

This week I'll cover BWI (Baltimore), LGA (New York/LaGuardia), PHL (Philadelphia), PIT (Pittsburgh) and PVD (Providence).  I will cover the Midwest (Chicago), the South (Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and San Antonio) and the West Coast (Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego and Las Vegas) in coming weeks.

Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village.

Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village in New York is so quiet and secluded that it feels as if you've just stumbled on to a movie set.  But you're right in the heart of Manhattan, tucked between 6th and 7th Avenues - just a couple of blocks from Washington Square Park.  The short, tree-lined street with attractive brownstones just begs to be strolled.  It even feels a little Parisian.  There are two wonderful restaurants on this street: The Cornelia Street Cafe and Home.

Both are especially lovely on warm days, when the front doors of the Cornelia Street Cafe  are opened.  There are often live music acts playing in the restaurant on summer evenings.  The French inspired food will make you feel as if you're sitting in a bistro in Paris.

The backyard patio at Home.

Right across the street from the Cornelia Street Cafe is Home restaurant.  This tiny, reasonably priced establishment specializes in comfort food.  The food and decor make you feel as if you're dining in someone's...home.  It's a great place for breakfast or lunch, and the back patio was one of my favorite places in New York to meet friends for a leisurely meal. 

Moving uptown in New York City, one of my favorites was Josie's, on the Upper West Side.  There are apparently now several Josie's in New York, but this was the only one for me.

Josie's restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue @ 75th street on the Upper West Side.

Josie's was usually loud and boisterous.  This is a great place for a large or loud group.  But don't bring heavy meat eaters here.  Josie's specializes in vegetarian cuisine.  Delicious vegetarian cuisine.  I usually ordered their vegetarian meat loaf.  A great place to dine before or after a show at nearby Lincoln Center.

The pastries at Vaccaro's in Baltimore.

Moving down the Eastern Seaboard, there were a couple of years when I constantly found myself overnighting in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  Just east of all the aquariums, museums and tourist attractions of the Inner Harbor was a wonderful section of town called Little Italy.  A very small, safe, walkable area of town that was filled with good Italian restaurants. Many a night I walked down to Little Italy from our hotel and ate dinner with my entire crew.

But the real treat for me in Little Italy was Vaccaro's bakery and pastry shop.  There are now numerous Vaccaro's locations around Baltimore, but the Little Italy location was the original.  Open late in the summer, this was a mandatory after dinner stop for a cooling cup of gelato.  I would also usually buy one of their delicious pastries - I recommend the Napolen - to eat for lunch the next day.  Tell 'em Vinnie sent ya'.

It's well known among my friends and family that I was never a huge fan of Philadelphia.  I believe it was Craig Kilborn who said, "Philadelphia is for people too afraid to live in New York and too stupid to live in Boston."  In other words, Philly isn't Boston or New York, and suffers by comparison.

But even I must admit that Philly had some good food.  There was actually a great little pizza place named Romano's, down the block from the hotel in Essington, where all the airline commuters stayed the night before or after our trips.  I had the place on speed dial on my cell phone.  Their pizzas were rectangular in shape, not circular; and the cheese went on the pizza first and then the tomato sauce on top.  Yum.  How YOU doing?

They also had great Italian sub sandwiches, if you were there during the day, and looking for some food to take out to eat later on the plane.  They were famous for their Strombolis, and there were pictures along the wall at the front counter of celebrities, including U.S. Presidents, eating their Romano's Strombolis. 

Rita's Italian Ice in South Philly.

As a vegetarian, I didn't get as excited for the cheesesteak sandwiches in Philly as most people.  But if forced to choose, I was more of a Jim's, on South Street in South Philly, than Geno's man.  They made a decent veggie "cheesesteak."  South Street in Philly is a very interesting and walkable neighborhoods with some unique shops and restaurants.  I'm a frozen drink kind of guy and the real pay off for me on South Street was Rita's Italian Ice.

Del's frozen lemondade of Rhode Island.

There's also a great chain of local "ice" places around the Providence, Rhode Island area, known as Del's.  They specialized in frozen lemonades, but as a connoisseur of frozen beverages, I felt obligated to try all their flavors, strictly for research purposes, of course.

I'm not one to debate the merits of Del's frozen fresh fruit drinks in Providence versus Rita's Italian ices in Philadelphia.  Why choose one over the other when you can just enjoy them both?  Be prepared for a brain freeze.

Finally, no US Air employee flew for very long without spending some time at some point in da' 'Burgh - downtown Pittsburgh, PA.  Pittsburgh is one of those downtowns full of office building that completely empty out by six p.m., leaving the city empty.  Except for a rare concert or ballgame, there was little to do in Pittsburgh after dark.

Primanti's Brothers, a longtime dining institution in Pittsburgh, came to the rescue.  Their famous sandwiches, I always went for the fried egg and cheese, were piled high with lettuce and french fries.  They were a mess to eat, but I would enjoy every bite.  Most importantly, several of their downtown locations were open late.

It's worth flying cross-country for a sandwich at Primanti's in Pittsburgh.

The highest testament I can give to Primanti's and their sandwiches is that when Boeing started test-flying their new 747-8 freighter aircraft this past summer, the test pilots had a choice of flying the plane to any East Coast city they wanted on their first flight.  Which city did they choose?  Pittsburgh.  The reason?  They wanted some sandwiches at Primanti's.

And like all good airline crews around the country, these guys were pros when it came to flying.  Even more importantly; they knew how to eat.  I was not the only one Flying for Food.

The Class Clown

My Dad bought us George Carlin's debut album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, in 1975.  By that time, it was available in the dollar discount bin in any record store.  Recorded in 1966, when Carlin was still in his clean-cut opening phase of his comedy career, it contained numerous funny and clever, but not earth-shattering routines, that he would have performed on his many appearances on The Tonight Show and Ed Sullivan's variety show.

My brother and I ate it up.  We memorized that album within a month.  We could be heard outside, around the house and when we were sitting in the car, imitating Carlin's distinctive New York voice as such characters as Al Sleet, the Hippie-Dippie weatherman ("Tonight's low will be 35.  Tomorrow's high whenever I get up...")

Dad knew we enjoyed Carlin's TV appearances and we listened to that album until it wore out.  So doing what any father trying to please his children would do, he bought us a couple more George Carlin albums - FM/AM and Class Clown.  Carlin won his first Grammy for FM/AM.  They were both landmark comedy albums, but they featured a completely different George Carlin from his first album.  Heavily influenced by the highly political, counter-culture work of Lenny Bruce, Carlin was reborn as a hippie himself.  His humor, no longer safe for family or TV audiences, was peppered with references to sex, drugs and religion.

The difference in his appearance was equally shocking.  He now wore tattered blue jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts, an earring, sported a beard and his long, graying hair was usually pulled back in a pony tail.   He became a comedic genius after freeing himself up to find his own Voice.  He refused to dumb down his act for Middle America anymore.

I was never sure if my Dad listened much to the more contemporary Carlin material.  I know my brother and I still performed the family friendly/PG-rated material around the house.  Such as the classic "Baseball & Football" routine.

Imagine our shock when my Dad came home from work one day in 1976 and announced that he had bought the three of us tickets to George Carlin's upcoming concert at the D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Revolution) Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. (I'm sure Carlin reveled in the irony of THAT venue).

The concert's audience was raucous, young, mostly college students, who were pumped up to be entertained by the "FM" George.  The pungent odor of pot drifted through the air.  Carlin, probably fueled by narcotics himself, performed a carefully honed set of raw, irreverent, thought-provoking material, including his most famous routine - Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.

I was 13 at the time and my brother was 11.  Looking back on the concert now, I have to wonder what in the hell my Dad was thinking.  My family's presence that night single-handily had the youngest and oldest members of the audience.  It would turn out to be the only time I ever saw Carlin perform live, so I must give my Dad credit for that.

A few years later, in 1978, I was living in Northern Virginia with my Dad, and he still worked as a government lawyer in Washington.  George Carlin's most famous routine, The Severn Dirty Words, had become infamous.  An FM radio station in New York City had played the routine in the afternoon in 1973.  A parent listening to the station, in his car with a young child, had complained about the broadcast to the Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.).  The F.C.C. fined the station for broadcasting "obscene" material over the public airwaves.  The station fought the F.C.C.'s authority to levy the fine in court, and the case reached the highest court in the land - the United States Supreme Court - in 1978.  (Yes, five years is a normal length of time for a case to wind its way through the legal system and up to the Supreme Court.)

Because the case involved obscenity/free speech issues, and, I think, mostly because it involved a famous, outspoken public figure like George Carlin, it garnered a great deal of attention in the media.

My father was a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar during that time.  He worked on cases for the government that would appear in the Court, although he would never argue a case there himself.  (He once took my brother and I to see a Supreme Court case argued, but that's best left for another post.)  Still, I was shocked when he came home one night from work and handed me a packet of 20-25 typewritten pages and said, "Here's a copy of the Carlin decision (Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978))."

For a civilian, to get your hands on a copy of a Supreme Court decision "hot off the press" in those days would have been a difficult task.  But for my Dad, it was like grabbing a gallon of milk on the way home from the office.  I thought it was pretty cool.

Contrary to what many people may have believed, George Carlin himself was never part of the actual case.  His "Filthy Words" routine from his Occupation Foole album was simply the routine that triggered the case.  It did, however, bring him a greater level of public awareness and notoriety, and certainly didn't hurt his reputation with his fans.

The most interesting thing about the Supreme Court decision to me was that it included a full transcript of the "Filthy Words" routine as an addendum.  The case is still considered a landmark decision.  (The Court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld Carlin's routine as "indecent but not obscene.")

Here's a brief, edited clip of the infamous routine, safe for broadcast, on NPR's "Fresh Air."

Time would pass and years later I would find myself living in an area along the coast in Los Angeles called Playa del Rey.  It was adjacent to Marina del Rey, an affluent yachting community that was home to many celebrities.

One morning I was driving up the Marina Freeway, a short stretch of freeway that connected the Marina area with the 405 Freeway.  (The Marina Freeway ended at Slauson Avenue and was known locally as the "Slauson cut-off."  I thought of Johnny Carson's Art Fern character - "Take the Slauson cut-off.  Now get out of your car and cut off your slauson.  Get back in the car and drive to the FORK IN THE ROAD" - every time I was on that freeway.)

The connecting ramp from the Marina Freeway rose quite high as it merged to the nortbound 405 Freeway.  It was probably 5 or 6 stories high, and on those rare clear days in Los Angeles - usually in January or February, after a good rain - you could see the Hollywood sign and the snow-capped San Bernadino Mountains in the distance.

I was driving on this ramp one morning on my way to work when I slowed to let an older, balding, pony-tailed man, wearing a long sleeve white sweater and driving a new, bright red Ferrari convertible - with the top down in January - merge in front of me.

After I slowed and motioned for him to go ahead and merge in front of me, he quickly turned back and gave me a big wave of "thanks", as both our cars curved up and over and back down to the northbound 405.

"That was a pretty demonstrative wave," I thought to myself.  Not something you see every day in Los Angeles.  You know, that guy looked incredibly familiar.  Wait..that was George Carlin!  No mistaking it.  Or was it?

As my little Toyota sputtered onto the 405, I decided to try and race up beside the Ferrari - which was now moving ahead quickly - to confirm it was really Carlin.  I punched the gas and moved up to the right of the Ferrari, taking a little glance to my left.  Carlin, now aware that I was looking at him, looked back at me - gave me another friendly wave - turned back to the road, gave the car some gas and sped away.

George Carlin did a series of fourteen acclaimed one hour live concert specials on HBO.  Other comedians were amazed by his ability to develop an hour of sharp, new, broadcast-worthy material each year.  It takes most stand-up comedians years and year to develop just one hour of good new material.

Carlin's last HBO concert was broadcast live from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA in March of 2008.  Cindy's theatre troupe was working in the smaller theater across the hall from Carlin's production that week.  The stagehands, working both Carlin's show and her show, told her that Carlin, no longer in need of a place for his stuff,  had donated the expensive, elaborate set that provided his show's backdrop to Sonoma State University's theatre department.

A few months later, in June of 2008, Carlin, who had suffered three heart attacks, checked into a hospital in Santa Monica, CA, complaining of chest pains.  He passed away that same day at the age of 71.

He was posthumously awarded the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor later that year. 

San Jose Goes Straight

It's interesting what you notice when you move to a new place.  Odd regional quirks the locals - the residents who have been there a long time - don't even give a second thought.

My job forced me to live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for nine months in 1988.  The day after I had driven my car cross-country from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, I drove down the nearest on-ramp to get on the Parkway (freeway) to the airport.  The car in front of me started to slow down - for no apparent reason - as it approached the "yield" sign at the end of the ramp.  It slowed to a complete stop  at the "yield" sign - there wasn't any other traffic in sight - and then proceeded to speed up and merge onto the freeway.

It was the strangest and darndest thing I had ever seen.  Coming from Los Angeles, you never slowed down with open space in front of you on any piece of pavement.  Ever.  I just wrote off this odd road behavior as one isolated incident.

Within the next few days, and after talking to a few friends from California and locals in Pittsburgh, I learned it was just local custom among many drivers in Pittsburgh to slow down to a complete stop at the "yield" sign on the freeway on-ramps when merging on to a freeway - even if it wasn't a busy time of day or there wasn't any traffic in sight.  They decided to treat the "yield" sign as a "stop" sign.  Nobody knew how or why this happened.

I can't tell you how many of us from California nearly rear-ended local drivers as we were accelerating to freeway cruising speed heading down a freeway on-ramp and they were slowing down to...a...complete...stop.  At the "yield" sign.  Arrrrgggghhh!

That's the kind of little thing you notice when you move to a new place.

I grew up in San Jose in the 1960's and 1970's - moving away in 1981 - and returned nearly thirty years later.  Much had changed in my absence, but it's these little things - common culture and local customs - that I've really noticed.

One of these is turn signals.  Or the complete lack thereof.  I've observed that most drivers in San Jose have completely abandoned the use of turn signals.  I'm sure people still used their turn signals when I first got my license and started driving here as a young teen.  I distinctly remember turn signal usage was covered in the Driver's handbook, and covered on both the written and driving tests.  Somewhere along the way in the intervening thirty years, the drivers of San Jose have collectively decided that turn signals are not worth the effort.

I find myself driving behind people now trying to guess their directional intentions by watching their head movements and the speed and movement of their car.  If they're in the far right hand lane and start to slow down and veer to the right, that's a pretty good indication that they're making a right turn, although even that behavior isn't full-proof in San Jose.  But driving behind them, you would never be forewarned of that intention by the use of anything so pedestrian as a turn signal. 

Left turns are tougher to predict.  There are numerous busy four lane roads in San Jose without a center turn lane.  It's a daily occurrence here where I'll be driving on a busy four lane street in the left lane and the person in front of me will suddenly slam on their brakes, stopping in the middle of the road, and sit there until a break in the oncoming traffic allows them to make their left turn.  This maneuver may take 10 - 15 seconds and a turn signal isn't activated during this entire time.

Having lived here for two years, I've now seen this behavior enough that I can predict it at this point.  Maybe everyone who has lived here for years is able to predict the turn behavior of all the cars in front of them as well, and this psychic ability has rendered turn signals obsolete within the city limits.  All I know is that San Joseans disdain their turn signals.  The turn signal lever is the vehicular version of an appendix.  Every car comes with one, but it serves no useful purpose.  Why bother?

Turn signal usage is so rare in San Jose that when I'm driving in the car with my family I actually point it out.

"Wow!  Look at that guy!  He's actually using his turn signal!"

These words don't pass my lips very often.

When we lived up in Sonoma County, we used to have a little saying - derived from the friendly rivalry that only two adjacent, bucolic, affluent, wine-producing regions can brew up - that "Sonoma meant good wine, while Napa meant auto parts."

I rarely see an auto parts store in San Jose.  I know they're out there - I bought some new wiper blades last year - but they're tough to find.  Maybe everyone's turn signal bulbs in San Jose are broken and they just can't find an auto parts store to replace the bulb.  Everyone in the city continues to use the turn signal lever in their car when they drive, blissfully unaware that the signal bulb hasn't been working since the Carter administration.  But I doubt it.

I suspect the more likely culprits are cell phones and smart phones.  Drivers here in San Jose aren't crazy or fast or filled with road rage, but they are unquestionably distracted.  Very, very distracted.  They love their phones.  And it's not easy to code your next iPhone app when you're continually distracted by the drivers around you.

We live a couple of blocks from the main police station in San Jose, so at our nearest freeway on/off-ramp around the times of day when the police make their shift changes, you can spot literally dozens of S.J.P.D. squad cars at intersections in our neighborhood.  These officers are WITHOUT QUESTION the undisputed kings of cell phone usage while driving.  They might as well have their cell phones surgically attached to the sides of their heads because I never see them driving by a nearby intersection without a cell phone.  Never on a Bluetooth headset either - always holding one up to their ears.  While making a turn at a major intersection.  Without a turn signal, of course.  So there's your modeling.

Like the beta version of a new gadget, I'm not buying it.  I don't text or talk on the cell phone while I drive.  If a call or a text comes in I need to immediately answer, I will actually take the radical step of waiting until I can safely stop and then answer the phone, using my turn signal as I pull over.

I vow to be the last person in San Jose remaining who still uses a turn signal.  Anthropologists will study my turn signal usage for years to come.  I am just too set in my driving habits.  After years and years of practice, I use my turn signal for even the most mundane turns in quiet neighborhoods.  I'm too old to change the act at this point.  Besides, maybe it's my subconscious way of letting people know that I don't plan to stay here.  I'm not changing my ways to match yours because in two years I'll be gone.  And you can have your distracted town, without turn signals, all to yourselves.

You can call me a throwback, a relic, version 1.0; but if you're ever driving around San Jose and you observe a driver using a turn signal, be sure to wave as you pass by - because the odds are that will be me.

Walking the Long Miles Home

The last 19A bus of the night leaves Dublin's City Centre, north towards Glasnevin.

Oh, the last bus has gone
Or maybe I'm wrong
It just doesn't exist
And the words that flew
Between me and you
I must be crossed off your list
So I'm walking the long miles home
I don't mind losing you
In fact I feel better each step of the way
In the dark I rehearse all the right things to say
I'll be home, I'll be sober by break of day
Walking the long miles home 

- The opening lyrics of Richard Thompson's song Walking the Long Miles Home

In the Fall of 1986, I lived with an Irish family and studied for a semester at the National Institute for Higher Education (now known as Dublin City University) in Glasnevin, a suburb just 5 kilometres north of Dublin's City Centre (downtown).   

The cost of car ownership was prohibitively expensive in Dublin 25 years ago; I didn't know a single student at my college who owned or drove a car.  A gallon (3.8 liters) of petrol  alone would set you back 3 quid (Irish slang for their "pound," which was then equivalent to approx. $1.35 U.S.) or $4 U.S.  The cars the Irish drove were tiny by American standards, and even those rarely had automatic transmissions.

Fortunately, Dublin had an excellent public transportation system.  All of us at the college had a student bus pass, and I used mine frequently to get back and forth between my house and Dublin's City Centre (An Lar in Irish).  The shock for an American accustomed to late night, or even all night, public transportation was that the last bus of the night left Dublin's City Centre at 11:30 p.m, even on Saturday nights.  Not very late for young people having a night on the town.

I attended several concerts that drifted past 11:00 p.m., and you could sense the audience getting restless, apprehensive about missing the last bus home.  A stagehand would sheepishly walk out to the performer about 11:05 p.m., whisper in their ear, and then the performer would say to the crowd, "I understand you all need to catch the last bus of the night, so this will be the final song of the evening."

Taxi service did exist in Dublin, although they tended to cluster around large hotels that served Americans and business people, rather than just cruising around the streets, like in New York.  They were prohibitively expensive.  A short 2-3 mile ride from the City Centre out to a house in the suburbs could easily cost $15-20 U.S.  Quite dear for college students on a budget.  I believe I only got in a taxi 2-3 times during my entire four months in Dublin.

So if you were out on the town with your mates, coming out of a movie, concert or a play, let's say, and you wanted to extend the evening by heading to a pub for a pint, and then over to Beshoff's chipper for some steaming, hot chips; around 11:15 p.m. you would have to make a decision: were you going to catch the last bus home or stay in town and walk home?  Was the craic - Irish for fun and good conversation - with your evening's companions in the the next two or three hours worth the 45 minute walk home in the dark at the end of the evening?  That was the question.

Dissolve to thirteen years later.  Richard Thompson, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, released a terrific album, entitled Mock Tudor, that included several great songs about what it was like to grow up in the suburbs of the United Kingdom.  During the 1950's for him, but it hadn't changed much since then.  Imagine my surprise to hear one of the songs entitled Walking the Long Miles Home.  It was about the experience I just described above.  Was your date or your companions worth missing the last bus and being forced to walk home?  It described an experience that any youngster growing up in the suburbs of Dublin or the U.K. had experienced.  I loved the song, of course, but I appreciated it so much more than the average American because I had lived it during my time in Dublin.

I did stay in Dublin past the last bus with my friends, or with a date, on several occasions, and then walked the long miles back home.  I must have possessed good judgement because I remember those walks home as some of the best and most revelatory times of my stay in Ireland.  I really got to know so many of my friends from college during those jaunts.  Dublin was so elegant and peaceful during those early morning rambles.  Sure, it occasionally rained.  But it was usually a "soft" rain, as the Irish would say, a mere light mist; and if that bothered you, well, then you were just in the wrong country.

Every time I hear the song Walking the Long Miles Home on the radio, or it comes up on my iPod, I am immediately conveyed back in time to those late nights and early mornings in Dublin, walking home with my friends.  And knowing there's a song out there that can transport you back to such a memorable moment and place can be a magical thing.  That's what great songwriters do.  Don't ever question Richard Thompson's credentials as a musical magician.

I'd love to order another pint and stay around and chat, but it's 11:20.  Gotta' run for my bus.  Ah, but the craic was grand.

If you are unfamiliar with the work of the brilliant singer-songwriter Richard Thompson, you may want to listen to a few of his songs below.

His version of the traditional folk song, Oops!...I Did It Again:

The sing-a-long audience favorite Tear-Stained Letter:

And if you've made it this far, here's one of my favorites, Vincent Black Lightning 1952, a chilling ballad that he has sung every time I have seen him live - and which never fails to silence the audience and send a shiver down your spine.  Also, his only song which contains my name in the title.

9/11

My work/flying pocket calendar from September, 2001.

I wish now, for the sake of this blog and your reading entertainment, that I had some thrilling, exciting, heart-wrenching tale of my flying life on the road the morning of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

For months and months after the attacks, I would hear tales from my fellow flight attendants about what they endured during 9/11.  The fear, isolation, distance between them and their loved ones, the boredom of sitting in a hotel room day after day with little to do, and no control over when and where they would leave.  Every airport in the country was closed.  Every airplane grounded - unless you were a member of the Saudi royal family.  No one seemed to know for how long.

I heard these stories from my flying friends, their impatience and frustration at the inability of anyone in charge to make a decision, forced to finally make decisions on their own, who would eventually rent cars and drive cross-country to return to the safety of their homes and family.

I have no such story.  Through the sheer luck of my schedule,  I arrived home about midnight on Monday, September 10th.  I got home six hours before the 9/11 attacks. 

I used to keep a little pocket calendar, shown in the picture above, of my flying.  If you can make out my chicken scratch, you may see that I played hockey on Wednesday, September 5th (in Santa Rosa) and then flew back to Philadelphia the following afternoon on my own time.  I paid $40 to stay at the airport Days Inn that night.  The following morning, Friday, September 7th, I started a four day trip in Philadelphia and wound up in Baltimore for the night.  The second day I worked out to San Francisco - where I can only assume I drove home on my overnight, which I normally did on any long SFO overnight - and headed back East the following day, Sunday, finishing day three in Providence, Rhode Island.

I called crew scheduling the next morning to put in a list of the few two day trips that I was still legal to work.  I flew up and down the East Coast that Monday the 10th - the day before 9/11 - finishing up in Philadelphia.  I called back in to crew scheduling and discovered I didn't get a trip for the next day, so I boarded the last flight of the night home to San Francisco.  That flight usually arrived in SFO around 9:30 p.m., and after I got off the plane, made my way to my car in the employee lot and drove the 90 miles north to Santa Rosa, probably stopping at the A&W drive-in in San Rafael for a late night veggie burger, I usually walked in the door back home in Santa Rosa about midnight.

The morning after returning home from a long stretch of flying, I would be completely exhausted.  My wife had attached velcro strips around our curtains that fastened to the wall - holding the curtains in place and making our room completely black - so I could catch up on my sleep.

My wife and my boys - both boys then two months shy of their seventh birthdays - would get up around 7:30 a.m., get dressed and eat some breakfast, come in to my room and give me some hugs, and then head out to school.

My precious golden retriever pup, Maggie, a year older than the boys, and starting to show her age with bits of gray around her eyes and nose, would realize that an early morning trip to the dog park was not in the cards, and she would usually move from her place at the bottom of the bed and snuggle her back up against mine, where we would both try and catch up on our sleep until noon.  That was the usual routine the morning after I returned from a long trip.  9/11, of course, was different.

The first plane hit the World Trade Center about 5:45 a.m. California time.  Our phone started to ring just before six a.m., my wife's friend asking if I was home and had seen the news.  I got up, still weary after a long weekend of flying and  a short night of five hours of sleep, threw on a robe,  moved to the couch, and turned on CNN.

I knew a B-25 Bomber had once flown into the Empire State building during World War II.  That was years ago on a foggy night.  This was a blue sky, unlimited visibility, morning in New York City.  I knew that Middle Eastern terrorists had tried to blow up the World Trade Center with a truck bomb in the early 1990's, but didn't quite connect the dots immediately.  It was just weird at that point.  I was tired. 

The crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa.

A second plane hit the second tower a few minutes after six a.m. California time, and it quickly dawned on every American that we were under attack - this was another Pearl Harbor.  Another day that would live in infamy.  Our phone now started to ring off the hook.  My wife answered most of the calls and assured everyone that I was safe at home, while I sat transfixed on the news reports, switching back and forth relentlessly from station to station, trying in vain to get a clearer picture of what was happening.  I was relieved when it became apparent that no planes from my airline were involved.

While I was not flying during the 9/11 attacks and didn't know anyone who lost their lives, it still had a huge impact on my life as a flight attendant.  2001 was my best earnings year as a flight attendant, and the 9/11 attacks set off a wave of layoffs, schedule cutbacks, bankruptcies and concessions that would eventually lead to my taking a voluntary separation package - a buyout - in late 2006, ending my career in the sky.

The Federal government immediately ramped up airport security to unprecedented levels.  Within a few months, we would all be removing our shoes, belts and shampoo bottles just to step on an airplane.  Or maybe not.  It seemed to vary every time.  You had no idea how much time to allow to get through the security checkpoint and what to expect once you got there.  A traveler no longer saved time by flying distances shorter than 350 miles.

The disgust and indignity that airline crew members felt toward the F.A.A. and the Federal government and its huge, growing security apparatus was deep.  They had failed to protect us on 9/11, and now every security checkpoint seemed to be manned by some clueless young kid with an attitude - or worse, a foreigner - with little or no previous security or aviation experience, who was now telling pilots with 20 - 30 years of flying experience to take their shoes off and stop asking questions.  Pilots don't take kindly to others telling them what to do.  Any one of these pilots - who resented being treated at security checkpoints as if they were the enemy - could take down any airliner they wanted any day of the week: with their bare hands.  It didn't go over well.

The largest single difference I saw as a flight attendant in the post 9/11 security was with the Federal Air Marshal (or F.A.M.'s, as we called them) program.  In my 13 years of flying prior to the 9/11 attacks, I NEVER had a working Federal Air Marshal on one of my flights.  Never.  They were believed to number less than a hundred, mostly working international flights.

Once the Air Marshal program was revved up and running at full capacity - with thousands of law enforcement officers transferring over from dozens of other agencies - it was rare that a week went by that I didn't have F.A.M.'s on a flight.  Based on the presence of F.A.M.'s I witnessed soon after the 9/11 attacks, I would say that had the program been in place at that level on the day of the attacks, I would have been surprised if F.A.M.'s had not been present on at least one of the four planes that were hijacked (I've been told that the F.A.M. staffing has been drastically reduced in the past few years).

As my father, a longtime Defense Department civilian employee loved to say, "The Government never tries to fight the next war - they always fight the last war, better."

America returned to flying after a few weeks.  Word quickly spread among airline crew members that we could show up at Ground Zero, show our airline employee I.D.'s and get an "insider's" tour of the site given only to family members, dignitaries and airline employees.  On every New York overnight I had in 2002, someone in the crew made their way downtown and took the tour.  They all said it was a sobering, powerful experience.  I just couldn't do it.  I didn't see the point.  Just flying into New York and seeing the smoldering wreckage of the World Trade Center site in the Fall of 2001 was enough.  I didn't need to see more.

I couldn't help thinking of the 9/11 hijackers, many of them caught on surveillance videos as they went through security checkpoints at airports around the country that morning, each time I would start my morning at one of the same cities they did:  Boston, Washington, Newark and Portland, Maine.  As we as airline crew members would experience the normal security harassment each working morning at each of these security checkpoints, that had failed to detain the hijackers, we all felt like patting the security personnel on their backs as we passed.

"Way to go, boys.  Nice work.  Well done."

We all knew airport security was just a big show.

I know this week, for the tenth anniversary of the attacks, we will all be bombarded by stories and images from that fateful day.  Through all the news reports, documentaries, movies and books, and government reports, I'm still not sure we, the American public, have been told as much as possible about the attacks.  New information will continue to trickle out in the coming years, but some things we will never know.

Captain's Ice

An informal "Captain's Ice" practice at Sharks Ice in San Jose, CA.

September is to hockey fans what March is to baseball fans.  Even if your team has come up short in the playoffs year after year ("Sharks, cough, cough, Sharks"), when each September rolls around and the Men of Winter prepare for another season, every true fan (or "finatic," in San Jose) is hopeful that this is finally THE YEAR.

The San Jose Sharks have been one of the most consistent teams in the NHL the past thirteen years - missing the playoffs only one time - and winning their division the past four straight seasons, but they just haven't been able to get over that final hump - an appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals.  They have appeared in the Conference Finals each of the past two seasons - the only NHL team to do so.

So after another off-season of big trades - thank goodness they were able to dump Heatley; now get ready to fall in love with dazzling young defenseman Brent Burns - free agent signings and other player moves, every true Sharks fan is ready to start the season and see what the 2011-2012 model Sharks can do on the open road.

All the players who were disappointed, beaten down and injured at the end of last season are now fresh and healthy.  The new arrivals are ready to prove they belong here.  The younger players from last season are ready to make a step up - take it to the next level - and prove they can be reliable veteran performers in the Bigs.

Each NHL season really starts in mid-August at the "Captain's Ice" practices.  NHL players and prospects who live in the Bay Area, including several who still live here but haven't played for the Sharks in years, gather together every weekday morning from 10:00 - 11:00 a.m to start to get the feel back in their hands and legs, and work on their conditioning, before the start of training camp.

NHLers can do a lot of off-ice training in preparation for another season, but ultimately the only way to get in shape to play hockey is to play hockey. 

Sharks forward Ryane Clowe stops for a picture.

I stopped in at Sharks Ice in San Jose (a four rink complex owned by the Sharks that is the only ice rink in San Jose) to watch this morning's Captain's Ice practice.  The rookies and prospects report to Training Camp this Friday, September 9th.  The informal morning Captain's Ice practices will continue through next week for the veterans, as they prepare for the start of training camp on Saturday, September 17.

If you're a hockey fan, I highly recommend coming out to Sharks Ice and watching one of the practices.  There's no charge and you can get up close to these talented pros, and get a much better idea of their size, speed and skill than if you were watching a game from the upper deck of the Shark Tank.

The Captain's Ice practices are also a great time for fans to interact with their favorite players.  The crowds are few, there were about 25 fans at today's practice, and the players are very accommodating of requests for photographs and autographs.

Former Shark Jonathan Cheechoo signs an autograph.

All the players I watched  today after practice were incredibly patient and gracious with the fans, taking the time to stop and take pictures and sign autographs for every fan who was waiting after practice.

It was also fun to see these grizzled veterans, many of whom ended last season looking pale, beaten and battered, now looking so fresh and tanned, sporting grins and smiles like little boys renewing their love of the game, and ready to go.  Coaches aren't allowed on the ice during these early "unofficial" practices, there isn't any hitting and no one keeps score, so it's just like the pond hockey of their youth.  Just a four on four scrimmage, or what the Canadians call "shinny" hockey.

They ran a few drills for thirty minutes to get warmed up and then broke into two teams to scrimmage.  It was funny to watch the pros trying to count the light and dark sweaters (a true hockey fan never calls it a "jersey"), taking them off and on to try and even out the teams, just like I've seen my boys do themselves hundred of times.

Sharks goalie Antti Niemi poses for a fan.

Brad Stuart, a former Shark who lives in San Jose in the off-season, but plays for the Detroit Red Wings during the season, came off the ice after the initial drills and before the scrimmage, leaving the remaining group with an odd number of skaters.  As he started to skate off, several of the other players started yelling, "Stewie, Stewie, come back and play, Stewie!"  Just like little kids out on the pond.

After thirty minutes of "shinny," they finished with some interval skating drills, skating hard for a couple of laps and then resting for a couple, over and over again - until they were all hunched over, out of breath, and barely able to skate.  All trying to push themselves as far as possible.

Will this be The Year for the Sharks?  Many people have been asking that question for the past ten years, only to have it answered "no" each April or May.  I would argue this is the best team, on paper, in Sharks history.  It seems like all the ingredients are there.  Winning any championship always requires some luck, drive and lots and lots of hard work.  And that work has already started as our Boys in Teal prepare for another season.  Is this The Year?  I don't know, but I can't wait.

(Note:  This is the first blog post where I actually took all of the pictures.)

San Jose's Top Ten

From the home office in Alviso, California (with apologies to David Letterman):

San Jose, CA: the self-appointed Capital of Silicon Valley.

TOP TEN REASONS TO LIVE IN SAN JOSE:

10.  The weather.  It's 80 degrees under blues skies today.  And every other day.  Think of all the time you'll save not having to pay attention to a weather report between March and October.

9.  The word "Garage Sale" is now obsolete (that's so 1.0) - you will now be able to purchase the same useless knick-knacks from your neighbor, and tell everyone you bought them at an "Estate Sale."

8.  Conveniently located world-class theatre, museums and fine dining - just 50 miles north in San Francisco.

7.  Speeding tickets no longer issued in the city of San Jose - budget problems have forced dismissal of entire police force.

6.  Don't worry about residents rioting or looting after local NHL team loses in the Stanley Cup Finals - the Sharks have never even APPEARED in the Stanley Cup Finals.

5.  Did we mention the weather? 

4.  Never know when you'll walk into a local watering hole and go home with the latest prototype of the new Apple iPhone™.

3.  Drive-up medical marijuana co-ops conveniently located on every corner.

2.  Worried about your inability to write well or properly speak English?  Never a problem in San Jose!

1.  "Dude, what an awesome day!  Let's score some weed and check out the Estate Sales."