Tales From the Front Lines
Pull!
[Rick wrote this entry (this time):]
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Being a professional musician is not for the faint at heart nor the weary as this entry will show.
The date was January 5th 2001 and according, to the airport, my flight was actually scheduled to be on time
even though it had been snowing just hours before. The Internet allowed me to keep closer
tabs on the airline than the folks at the ticket counter. I arrived at my airport
(we have ONE flight which goes to Toronto, so we're an international airport). The ticket agent
told me that all was fine, no delays and my destination airport was having no problems. Well the Internet
had already informed me that the flight was delayed by one hour and upon further inspection, the
agent discovered this as well.
We finally departed and soon we were winging our way to the show. We arrived on time...well we began circling on time anyway.
It seems that they had closed all runways due to the snow! We had been circling for
about an hour when the flight attendant told us that Logan was opening one runway but there were
26 planes lined up in front of us to land. Fuel must have became a problem because we started
down to land within minutes....then we started back up-closed AGAIN! The pilot says, "We're
going elsewhere". So off we went. We landed about 20 minutes later and climbed
on a bus. After the driver watched us put all of our luggage
into the van, he decided to tell us that he was not going where we thought. OUT came the luggage and back into
the snow we went to wait for another van. 20 minutes later it shows up. My final arrival was delayed by 3 hours
and when I walked into the terminal-there was Faux Pa (Jim) with sandwiches waiting in the van.
The show was great!! Everyone was wonderful! We taped for a cable TV station and spent
Sunday in the studio working on our latest project "Coal Tattoo".
Our flights home was mostly uneventful, except that THEY CANCELLED MY FLIGHT WITH
ANNOUNCEMENT! After Bob had boarded his flight, I walked back outside before going downstairs to my gate. After all,
I had an hour to wait before I could board the plane. When I returned inside of the terminal
I just happened to glance at the board and saw that they CANCELLED my flight! SO, downstairs I go
to the ticket counter. The attendant at the counter was not even aware the flight was cancelled.
She rebooked me on another flight..."It boards in 10 minutes!" she said. UP the escalator I go. I stepped on-it stopped.
UP the escalator I walk, over to the new flight counter, hand the young woman my NEW tickets
only to find out that they were rebooked incorrectly!!! I ran BACK down the escallator (this side was working), stood in line
had my ticket fixed and back up the escalator (remember?? huff, huff), to the new counter, checked my bag, boarded
and settled in for a nap. I changed flights in Philly and landed at home at the time my original flight was
going to land.....BUT THEY LOST MY BAGGAGE!!!! IT'S Only one bag! I checked it at the DOOR OF THE PLANE!!! Where could it be??
Well it showed up the following day on my front porch.
So, you really want to be a musician.......
Previous Front-Lines Tale:
Our barge trip in the Mississippi River!