Politics Magazine

Valuable Time

Posted on the 01 October 2023 by Steveawiggins @stawiggins

Those who know me are sometimes surprised to learn that I’m half southern, genetically, at least.  My father was a South Carolinian and so I find myself in Charleston, wondering at how I got here.  At least in the short term, it was a long trip.  We left the house at 4 a.m. yesterday and arrived in Charleston some ten hours later.  (The time in the sky was, of course, less than two-and-a-half hours.)  Our initial flight was delayed for two hours, while, in the gate next door another airplane, from the same airline, to the same hub, scheduled an hour-and-a-half later than our flight, left on time.  I sighed as I read the prominent sign ironically reading “Your time is valuable.”  Yes, it is.  And although the ABE (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton) airport is nice enough, I think I could’ve used a couple more hours abed instead.

Valuable Time

It must be quite a logistics nightmare when a plane breaks down.  It’s not like a bunch of spare jets sits in the Lehigh Valley, awaiting the eventuality of some mechanical failure.  Not only do you need a plane, but also a crew that consists of people scheduled to end up in a set location.  In this case they had to fly a jet up from Philadelphia, and then muster a crew to get us on the first leg.  Fortunately, they knew about the delay when we checked in and put us on a later flight to Charleston.  I wonder if our stranded original crew, wherever they were, are still there.

I often think about how long-distance travel follows a chiastic pattern.  You start by walking from your domicile to your car.  You park the car for a larger vehicle that can only land, or dock, in specified locations.  You arrive at such a location, get a car—or you know somebody with one—to take you to your destination where you walk inside.  It’s the in-betweens that take the vast majority of the time.  It’s really amazing that we can do this at all.  I’m in Charleston for a family reunion.  I haven’t been to South Carolina for about two decades—last time was for my father’s funeral.  But this is our vacation for the year.  A chance to see someplace new.  And, given the September we’ve had, to feel a little warmth.  Connecting is important.  Airports help make this possible in the world of the 9-2-5 job that doesn’t, it turns out, offer days off.  Your time is valuable.  It’s worth ten hours of traveling, and then some.


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