Earlier this month, our friend Mary Anne flew to Tennessee to visit her mother and sister. All would have been well had not United routed her homebound flight through Denver.
We can thankfully say we don’t know anyone who died in, or narrowly escaped from, the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, but we can say we know someone who was trapped in Denver International Airport during the Great Blizzard of December 2006, and here’s an MSNBC photo of her to prove it:
Actually, we know all three people in this photo. The gentlemen playing cards with Mary Anne are Drew and Scott, the grandson and son-in-law of mutual friends. Drew and Scott live in Denver and drove out to the airport in a four-wheel-drive vehicle to share Mary Anne’s pain. No fair-weather friends, these.
Oh, Mary Anne finally got home early this morning, in time for Christmas. Just think of all the poor travelers still camping out at DIA, waiting for scarce standby seats on overbooked aircraft. Thanks to advances in instrument flying, we now routinely fly in almost all kinds of weather, the operative word being “almost.” When Mother Nature reminds us she’s still in charge, it’s humbling.