Everything is Fine

You're supposed to get to the airport two hours ahead of your flight, so we got to Hobby at 4:30 AM - we were not going to miss this plane. I had TSA Pre, my wife did not, yet she still beat me through the security line. We had time to get a cup of coffee, most of the vendors were just opening. We were set to fly to Nassau in the Bahamas, for a much-anticipated sailing vacation with friends. Excited as I was, I could barely keep my eyes open. With last-minute packing and a 3:30AM alarm, I had gotten virtually no sleep. I couldn't wait to board - I hoped I could snooze if I could come down off the adrenalin of anticipation. As the airport came alive, we watched the gate area fill up with summer travelers. There were dozens of groups in custom-matching T-shirts. Bright orange, fluorescent green, "Smith Family Reunion - Bahamas, 2024," "Building Bridges for God - St. Someone Baptist Church," and "Troop 123 Summer Camporee!"

The wife and I noticed that the boarding time slipped 10 minutes as the departure monitor showed a "delayed" tag. We laughed, a little nervously, thinking we could have slept ten more minutes.

One of my oldest and bestest friends had called me up at the beginning of the year and said, "you wanna go sailing again?" It was Kirk, my buddy and the best man at my wedding. We worked together for years at the tee-vee station and had never lost touch. We've had many adventures together, including driving down through Mexico to Belize. We flew our girlfriends, now wives, down so that we could meet them at the Belize airport. We were late, missed the connection. Though it is too long a sidebar to go into here, ask either of us to tell story 19B and it's a doozy. If you run into our wives, they have their own, inaccurate versions of the same story (19A.) We've gone on camping trips, enjoyed sailing days on Lake Travis, and taken an earlier bareboat sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands. It was on the BVI trip that I proposed to my wife, the lovely Velveeta.

The departure screen flashed "delay" again, and in my early morning haze, I wondered how long we had to change planes in Orlando. Oh shit, it had originally been only an hour, but with the delay, it was shrinking down to thirty minutes. I approached the gate agent and asked if that would be a problem. "I don't know." He was not awake, either. "I'll tell you what, I'll call the command center upstairs, see what they think. They're just getting to work."

Kirk had said that we would sail the Bahamas, the Exumas chain to be specific. There would be two other couples going, including a couple of their kids. Hmmmmm. A vacation in a confined space that would include kids. He assured me that everyone was fine. The kids were manageable. I said that it sounded pretty good, but I would talk to the missuz. She wanted to meet the group, but she could barely contain her excitement. Over a couple of fun planning meetings/cookouts, we were a firm "yes." An ecstatic "yes."

The "delay" board lit up again, this put us about 45 minutes late. Dread began to set in. The gate agent finally announced that they would hold the Orlando flight for the connection. He announced it two or three times. Whew. And then the delay flipped to a full hour.

As the hour got closer, they called for pre-boards and suggested that we all line up for our seating.

"Except for those connecting to Nassau, your flight is canceled."

We did double and triple takes. Our jaws dropped. There were no seats left the rest of the day to get to Nassau, and only one the next day - I'd already checked. About twenty of us were in full panic. The agent directed us to the main ticket counter. We hustled back to the counter, where they had no idea what was going on. "You need to get to Tulsa?" asked one agent. Panicked passengers, confused agents... finally one Southwest employee came forward... "Go get your bags down in luggage and come back here, we'll find out what we're going to do." We slipped into an elevator, and sweet Velveeta broke down in tears..."I've wanted all year for this, I NEED this!" I was a zombie. "It will be fine." I told her. "Somehow."

Our bags were there, almost unbelievably. We grabbed them and went back upstairs. The one agent who seemed to be "the guy," said, "Give me your passports, I'll see what I can do." Like refugees just begging to escape, we handed them over. The airport was, by now, swarming with summer travelers. The rainbow of color-coded shirts was swirling about. Members of our little group milled about, angry, sad, anxious... a couple next to us complained that it couldn't have been a weather delay as one agent suggested - he was a corporate pilot and said that there was no weather stoppage anywhere in the country.

The ticket agent appeared and began calling our names, handing us back our passports. "You have two hours," he called out. "Two hours to get up to the Intercontinental Airport and check in with United Airlines, they should have your transferred reservation for a noon flight." Holy shit. We would have to get through freeway traffic to the terminal, pray that we were "in the computer" somehow, check bags, go through TSA again, and get to the gate in that huge airport. Corporate-pilot-guy said, "You wanna share an Uber?" I nodded. "Let's go."

We found a waiting driver at the Uber stand who said that he could take us. We dickered over the price and finally got him down to where our new friend had booked another driver. We jumped in and... well I remember very little. I was the walking/sitting dead, zoning out like a 2AM drunk. I remember my wife holding my arm, worriedly whispering, "he's going 90 MPH." I managed to smile and give her a thumbs-up.

Tropical storm Beryl was bearing down on Mexico. We didn't buy trip insurance. We were more worried about storms in the Bahamas than a canceled flight. It was early in hurricane season, but what with climate change, it's such a crap shoot. Beryl had shifted slightly northward, but it was a disorganized storm, and would probably go ashore between northern Mexico and maybe as far up as Corpus Christi. Our niece was dog/house-sitting, so we were just glad that the Carribean was clear. It would be fine.

My wife shook me, "We're here." We bailed out of the SUV and headed to the terminal. The clock was ticking. We ran inside to a scene I can only suppose was reminiscent of the Paris train station as the French crowded the platforms to escape the advancing Germans. The TeeVee people had said it would be one of the busiest travel days of the summer, and here we were, searching for a United agent who might understand our plight. We literally ran into a jacketed fellow amid the mayhem. "Please sir, we got rebooked from a Southwest flight and we understand we're now on a United flight to Nassau." He reared back, looking us up and down. He grinned maniacly. "WHAT?" he demanded. "You attempted to fly the WORST airline in the nation, and now, here you are, begging for our wonderful airline to bail you out. Ha-ha-ha...."

My friends, on any other day, this would have been a hoot. This fellow could have been the twin brother of the old comic Rip Taylor.

"So we're here to RESCUE you?" he demanded, an impish grin never leaving his face. I knew we had to roll with it, but maybe he saw the desperation in our glassy eyes. I could have said under my breath, "Please, please just help us." He escorted us to some kiosk and helped us punch in a passport number or a ticket number or something, I dunno, I was a zombie. Our names miraculously came up, he pushed the screen, and two boarding passes printed. We nearly wept. Somehow we got bag-tags printed and got them to a United bagman. We thanked Rip, ("We saved you!") and headed for security check-in. It would be fine, I assured Velveeta.

We texted Kirk that we were scrambling, our odds seemed grim, but things were looking up. "No worries, it'll be fine," came the reply. Somehow we got through TSA and headed for the gate. IAH has recently gone through multiple remodels and expansions. We hiked through what seemed to be three Galleria malls. Shops, newsstands, airport lounges, food courts, kiosks... and every now and then a sign for airline gate numbers. The clock was ticking. The Germans were getting closer. We hurried to our train.

Somehow, we made it. I passed out, sitting upright in my seat. The next thing I knew, Velveeta was nudging me to look out the window. If you've never traveled to the Caribbean, (or the Florida Keys, or around the Yucatan in places,) it's hard to describe the blue hues that color the sea and sky and how they constantly shift throughout the day. Things were going to be fine.

Getting through the Nassau airport and customs was a breeze compared to the rest of the day. We got to the marina after a long cab ride that ran the length of the island. Smiles and high-fives all the way around. The boat was spacious and had a modern nav system, flush toilets, about ½ dozen refrigerator compartments complete with an ice maker, a nice galley, and most importantly, cold air conditioning. Much different from the very bare boat we had sailed on 30 years ago. Kirk noted that the very heavy-duty automatic dinghy lift/swim platform off the stern was inoperable. We would simply tow the dinghy. Everyone was all grins and giggles, ready to set sail.

The boat had wifi through an intermittent cellular router. It was unspoken but apparent early on that no one would be glued to internet, though we were reading reports almost from before we left the marina that Hurricane Beryl was turning sharply north and might hit the Houston-Galveston area. We checked periodically with our housesitters, with weather reports, and text messages and emails from family. But the obsession with "breaking" news, headlines, and politics drifted away, blown back to the mainland as we sailed windward over water "as clear as gin, boys."

As it turns out, the dinghy lift was not the only thing that was a little wonky. Capt. Kirk complained that the mainsail rigging was a bit tangled. One of the salon windows was heavy, and when opened, had a tendency not to lock and to slam down like a guillotine. It wasn't long before the generator shut off, throwing an "overheating" warning. With some local troubleshooting and a call back to the office, we found that some seawater intake filters were clogged with seaweed - an occurrence that Capt. Kirk had been assured would never happen. We had trouble figuring out how to light the stove. A handheld radio that would have been handy on the bridge wouldn't charge.

Did you ever see that meme with the punchline, "Oh this is fine." It was a cartoon - a bug-eyed dog smiling in the middle of a conflagration. Originally drawn in 2013 by K.C. Green for his "Gunshow comic," it was originally titled "The Pills Are Working" or "On Fire." It pops up every now and then during a crisis, a political predicament, or a climate emergency.

It suddenly became our vacation mantra. Both in the ironic fashion of the classic cartoon/meme but most of the time, it was a literal interpretation.

One of the water tank empties and cuts off the water for half the boat when the second tank doesn't kick in... it's fine. We dinghy through Sanctuary Creek, a crystal clear channel that flows through Shroud Cay, counting turtles as they swim out from the mangrove-lined banks. This is fine. The dinghy appears to have a leak, we must have knocked off a piece of the drain plug. It's fine, really, it's fine. The air conditioning goes out on two sleeping cabins and the salon. Oh, it's fine. (We called in a tech who flew out to one of the islands to meet us to fix that one!) We have a great dinner washed down with rum punches at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, a known hangout for the late Jimmy Buffet. After dinner, we petted nurse sharks in the marina outside. Is this fine, or what? During some maneuvering at an anchorage, we reverse engines only to run over a dinghy line, tangling up the prop and disabling that engine. The Capt. and one of the guys snorkel around it for a couple of hours, cutting out the tightly wrapped line. It's fine. We motor out to the windward side of the islands only to find a glass-calm Atlantic. Within an hour, we're bouncing around on some heavy chop as two or three thunderstorms surround us. We all laugh... it's fine!

Even for some of the maintenance problems, we assure Capt. Kirk that really, it was fine. The sailing from island to island was idyllic. I told him that he could simply drop and drag an anchor off any one of the islands... and we could sit there all week staring out at the sunsets and it would be blissfully fine.

I probably don't have to point out, that our vacation slogan sometimes veered in the "heavy-with-irony" category, sometimes it had a "hint-of-irony," but often it was in the sincere, "so, really, this-is-so-fine" category. It was all in the delivery - vocal inflections, body posture, and followup laughter.

We knew that Hurrican Beryl had smacked the Houston/Galveston area pretty hard. All of us on the boat knew that our homes were without electricity, some of us had lost some fence panels, had a roof leak or two, and would face pounds of spoiled food in our freezers. Everyone had someone at home keeping an eye on things, and we all appreciated that there was little that we could have done sitting through the storm and its aftermath. In other words, we could not have picked a better week to get out of town. We were fine. It was fine.

As it was, we faced our own beryl. I recently discovered that the name "Beryl" comes from the mineral beryl, composed of beryllium aluminium silicate.  You may know this mineral in its forms like emeralds and aquamarines. The name of the mineral comes from the Greek, bḗryllos, which referred to a 'precious blue-green color-of-sea-water stone.' Our beryl-colored seas and skies were certainly fine.

We put into the Nassau marina Friday night and shared one last meal. The next morning it was all cleaning and packing and goodbyes. The lovely Velveeta and I headed for the Marriot, determined to spend one more night on the island. We would toast 30 years of marriage. Capt. Kirk and his wife did the same and for the same reasons. They would extend their stay for several days, with fewer maintenance headaches and worries about their passengers' comfort!

I instinctively snapped on the TV when we reached our hotel room. The seemingly ever-present "BREAKING NEWS" graphic was all over the screen. "Assassination attempt on President Trump." "Shots Fired, One Dead at President Trump Rally." "Assassin Killed By Secret Service at Campaign Event." "Trump Shot."

We met the Capt. and his wife for dinner and then a nightcap. We compared notes on the Breaking News. On what we were hearing about storm damage at home. On the disarray of the Democrats over Biden's reelection effort. Someone raised a glass with "It's all fine." We all chuckled, but without as much enthusiasm as we'd had earlier in the week.

We're all home now, the Beryl storm damage is mostly cleaned up. The memories of beryl seas and azure skies give way to more headlines. I was halfway through this piece, and the "Breaking News" graphic flashed: "BIDEN DROPS OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE."

It will be fine.
Irony "fine"? Sincerity "fine"?
I guess we'll have to see.