october 7, 1998
my son's birthday.
ok so wednesday, we're flying to dallas enroute to san antonio. about 1/2 hour out of orange county the plane kind of "bumped", like an air pocket, or turbulence, but kinda different, and cherie and i looked at each other and went "hmph, that was kinda wierd" and went back to talking. then it did it again. then it did it again and cherie said "ok, this isn't fun anymore, what's going on..." so i'm at the window seat as always - i've always said, halfway jokingly - that i want to be at the window cuz if we're goin' down, i want to know and see. so i'm looking out the window and my dawning realization was "um, the plane *is* going *down* cherie" (as in it's headed downward, not crashing). i could see the desert mountains, and we were dropping *below them. so i keep watching a few more seconds and then it starts going DOWN, and FAST. i looked over at cherie and she said "this plane's going DOWN, i don't know where, but it's going down" (as in crashing) and as she said that, all the oxygen masks in the plane dropped from the compartments in front of our faces and the attendant yelled "put on the masks NOW". so we grabbed the masks and put them on (heart thumping wildly) and cherie grabbed my hand. the attendant came walking down the aisle to check on people, moving from seat to seat by picking up an unused mask at every other seat, taking a breath and then moving on. her eyes were big as saucers behind the mask. there's no word from the pilots, we're just going DOWN, FAST. it was eerily silent in the plane, just the hiss of oxygen, and we just sat there, holding the masks on, holding hands and going down, waiting for someone to say "assume the position". i'm looking out the window, watching the ground get closer, nothing but desert down there.... cherie's crying, she has a very young son...
i have no idea how long that went on, it seemed like a long time, plenty of time to do a serious reality check with God. all the messages from RENT and The Last Session, and the discussion threads on steve's board and things i've felt my whole life went thru my head, and i questioned if what my beliefs and what i hold true are right in God's eyes, or was i completely off-base, and what i got out of that soul conversation is that love is the only thing that matters, and i had done my best. at that point i became completely calm and unafraid and ready for whatever - i felt g00d, it was amazing how calm i felt. i was more concerned about cherie and even thought, man, my pants are tight, 'assuming the position' is going to be really uncomfortable! LOL!
finally the plane
leveled off and after a few minutes the pilot came on and said "we lost cabin
pressure, we're going to make an emergency landing in phoenix". he told us the
plane was okay and we'd make it to the airport, but we needed to land and get out.
so we flew another 25 minutes or so with the oxygen masks still on (it was really gross if
you took them off, all you could smell was like exhaust fumes - gag) - they cleared the
runways and had all the fire engines & police waiting and everything - they
couldn't bring the plane up to the gate so we had to climb down the stairs.
*afterwards* they told us (i didnt know this) that when that happens, the pilots put on
these big black oxygen masks and they can't talk (except to the tower), can't even tell
the attendants what's happening, and they *have* to get the plane down to below 10,000
feet immediately or it may explode... hence the nose dive!
sidenote: a photo
opportunity! once safely on the ground (but still in the plane and on oxygen), we
took pictures inside the plane - LOL!
so! we get on another plane and fly to dallas, wait another 2 hours (cuz of course
we missed our connecting flight), they put us on a plane, everyone's on, they shut the
doors, and we sit there. finally they come in and say "there's something wrong
with this plane and we can't fix it, you all have to get off and wait for
another plane that will be here in about an hour"! maaaan!
and how was your week? :-)