Nostalgia, Beef Jerky, and Airplane Etiquette

**This is a picture of my hand, close-up.  No, it has nothing to do with this post...I just like it!

It is September 9th, 2011.  Summer, the "time to enjoy the sweet things in life" is over, while summer the "time to try to prepare for classes in fetid, humid air" lingers on...I will say though, that the mornings and evenings are getting cooler here in central Japan, and Autumn is whispering all kinds of sweet nothings in my ear as I bike to work. 

Travelling home to Seattle in summer was, of course, wonderful.  This year was also my 30-year High School reunion, so it was an especially nice trip. My head and dreams are filled with faces of friends and teachers, blueberries, raspberries, and the lakes, trees and the glorious smells of the Pacific Northwest. I am finding it hard to snap out of my reminiscences and think about the second term of school which will begin very soon... so I am giving myself a lot of "breaks", i.e. a little time to recount the story of flying back to Japan from Seattle in this post.

My seat on the plane, just in front of the wing, was a window seat on the right hand side of the cabin. I had boarded early, as my recent "Silver Medallion" frequent-flyer status allows (...I thought this early-boarding was meaningless when I scanned the chart of things I DIDN'T get until becoming a "Platinum Medallion" member, but the beauty of being assured space in the overhead bin and being able to settle in my seat without impatient people trying to get around me with lumpy suitcases won me over very quickly!).  My one and only neighbor very politely smiled at me before putting his bag up above and a little carry on under the seat in front of him. That is when everything took a bad, nearly evil turn...He pulled out a very large, EXTRA-SPICY bag of Beef Jerky to place in the seat pocket in front of him! BEEF JERKY!

Now don’t get me wrong—I do not wish to put down the Seattle-founded Oh, Boy! Oberto company (yes, the exclamation point is part of their name).  In fact, in junior high school I ate enough of the stuff to pave the road to, well, the other Emerald City (Get it? Seattle’s nickname?) *I am talking strictly jerky here...even THEN I knew that those “pepperoni sticks” were vile! **Hey! It just occurred to me that maybe the school allowed the stuff to be sold in the student store in the first place NOT because it was supporting a local company but because they knew the power of pepperoni sticks in keeping young hormone-driven lips apart! Smelly food for thought... But back to the recent past:

The man...The extra-spicy beef jerky...the .00001 millimeters between our seats...and the 10+ hours we were about to share together on an international flight...

In the name of self-defense, with the speed that can only be generated by true “fight or flight” situations (and paired, perhaps, with a small dose of general middle-age crankiness at the lack of public decorum infesting society...), I said:

Jen: (in a dramatic stage whisper, with big, surprised eyes, only 1/2 turned toward the man): “Beef Jerky?! No…..no, no, no, no nononononooooo, he CAN’T plan on eating beef jerky on a PLANE with no air circulation!…It MUST be a gift for someone back home! Wow…beef jerky…on a plane!...hehehe…” (shakes head in disbelief)

Man: (with blank look) “ .................”.

I wasn’t sure he could understand me…the flight was going from Seattle to Tokyo, then on to China and Vietnam…he could have been from anywhere.  Not that his being able to understand me or not excuses my rudeness (But truly, was I any more rude than he was, bringing BEEF JERKY on a ten-hour international flight?! And what about the Airport selling the stuff? Talk about RUDE! I’d say THEY have a bit of explaining to do: endangering the air of millions of passengers and crew-members alike on a daily basis! I think I’ll write a letter!). I finally knew he did understand when, the first time he got up from his seat he took the offensive meat-product with him and came back to the seat smelling suspiciously minty-fresh! He had obviously brushed his teeth (and possibly downed half a bottle of mouthwash) after his snack. I smiled very brightly at him and sighed a big inward sigh of relief.   He said perhaps two things to me during the flight, “excuse me” and “sorry”...and I hardly blame him...who wants to talk to a crazy, rude woman? As I rarely enjoy talking to strangers on flights, his not interacting with me was a second, hidden “reward” for my rudeness I guess...

Karma can work very quickly, though: just after I stage-whispered my dismay at my seat-mate’s choice of in-flight nourishment, the girl/woman (impossible for me to guess) sitting in front of me decided, 30 minutes in to the flight, that it STILL wasn’t time to close her window-shade.  All of the others were closed and had been closed since the last Seattle-esque speck of land had disappeared from sight. I realized that I was still wearing my sunglasses and when I took them off, I was nearly blinded by that special light that is only found at 37,000 feet.  I quickly put them back on and assessed the situation.  Technically, the window was part mine....3/4 of it hers, but 1/4 of it fell decidedly on my side of the back of her seat. Telling myself it was one of those situations where it was better to do a thing first and perhaps apologize for it later, I took full possession of that 1/4 and pushed the shade down.  Depending upon her reaction, I had planned on saying something like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you had fallen asleep and hadn’t realized that the time has come for everyone to shut their window-shades so we can sleep or watch movies!” Her reaction was to jump as if I had tasered her. She did not say anything, but slightly turned her head, as if unsure of what crazy thing I was going to do NEXT!  When nothing more came from behind her seat, she must have convinced herself that we were now in some sort of negotiation with the window-shade, because she proceeded to re-open it “just an inch”, which had the effect of not only burning my eyeballs, but burning them with the laser-like focus and intensity found only on vintage Star-Trek episodes!

Was she THAT INTERESTED in clouds? Was she hoping to see a sunset, despite the fact that we would be directly under the sun for the entire trip?! These were my thoughts as I closed the window again, while saying “I’m sorry, it is just a little too bright out there to have our shared window-shade open just now...”  A little while later I began to feel a little troll-like because it occurred to me that it might have been her first trip on an airplane....and then it occurred to me that maybe she had been  using the light to read because she didn’t know how to turn on the overhead light. Well, I had planned to find a way to show her how to do so on my way back from a trip to the bathroom and a little stretch.  Long before I made it to my seat, however, I could see that she had the window-shade open again, but was using her pillow to “block” the light from reaching me. Now, anybody who has foolishly opened an airplane window-shade mid-flight knows that the special GOD-LIGHT at that elevation has the power to penetrate skulls, not to mention the flimsy puffs that pass for in-flight “pillows.” I marveled, for a split second, at how the pillow was nearly translucent, before pushing the window-shade down once more.  She finally left it down until someone else opened their shade a few minutes before bits of the Japanese archipelago could be deciphered through the clouds.  I let her keep it open then, and suddenly wondered why she hadn’t opened the OTHER window, slightly in front of her seat, but which she must have had 3/4’s possession of...

My puzzlement melted away upon hearing what I have come to value as one of the most beautiful phrases in any language, anywhere: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have begun our descent in to (insert city name here), where the local time is...”My brushes with beef-jerky breath and near-blindness were forgotten as I started to ponder just how many more comfortable minutes I would have before the Japanese humidity would welcome me back with open, damp arms.

More Teacher Thanking and Me-he-HEM-RIES...

Maybe it is only because it is the first testing season of the year (there are five here in Japan, conveniently every two months or so), I don't know-- I just seem to be in a reminiscent mood about my own school days. So, I will continue my earlier writing where I thanked some of the teachers I had. Today I'll write about THE DARK AGES (more commonly known as "Junior High School"!). Oh, and before I go on, I DID remember that the dog which so kindly scarfed up my left overs in the 4th grade was named Cuddles! I have the feeling it was David Denny's dog that just sort of followed him to school one day though it was against the rules...Mrs. Duffy had more sympathy for that dog that us students!

Onward, ever onward. My introduction to "Canyon Park Junior High" began with one Donald Halazon. He was my homeroom teacher, my social studies teacher, my language arts teacher (I think), and later the man I T.A'ed for in 9th grade. Is T.A. a verb?! His first words to me were "Hansen?! Jennifer? Uh...are you by any chance related to Margaret and Amy?!" Labeled! The first day! Still, it turned out all right. He was essentially a very fair man who loved teaching. Loving his work did not stop him from making his favorite quote every other day though: "Do you know that teachers earn LESS than GARBAGE MEN?!" When he wasn't teaching or ranting, chances were you could find him imitating Donald Duck. He not only was head of the "Traffic Safety" club (?! We helped guide cars into parking spots for school events! I can't believe it but it was actually a cool club at the time!!), he introduced the people in that club to Greek food. He told us his name was actually Halazonetheopolis, or something close to that. He married a lovely woman who had a younger sister not much older than us. I thought at the time that she had enough hair for three people. I hope they are still happy and healthy together. Thank you, Mr. Halazon.

Other Junior High teachers: Mrs. Patricia Legget, who had great red hair, a constant smile, and knew how to teach math despite the near-perfect inattention of her charges. Priscilla Hickey (I SWEAR I am not making these names up!!), P.E. teach and gymnastics coach extraordinaire, all 4.5 feet of her! Barbara Brodniak, another P.E. teacher/coach who I have thanked many times for coaching me in basketball and "life" in general. We went to see the Sonics play at the Key Arena and that was my first professional sporting event of any kind. Mr. Estes, an English teacher and counselor that, by some magic, actually got through to a lot of junior high students. Mrs. Kunkle, the strict but elderly and forgetful English teacher who we fooled by putting an afro wig on Mike Battista and telling her a new "girl" called "Michelle" had joined the class. "Michelle" had her head down on her desk and started "crying"...causing Mrs. Kunkle to try to figure out how to deal with a crying new girl delicately. We got a TON of homework that day when she finally realized she had been had! It was worth it. Mrs. Peck, the art teacher, with thick black hair nearly down to her knees. Ms. Cohee, English/French/Drama/Dance teacher and cheer leading coach...energy to spare and sincere to the end. We loved her and were lucky enough to attend her beautiful wedding to Dennis. Oh! Mr. Ted Freemantle, who WAS as cool as his name sounds! He was like a modern-day Shakespeare, physically: tall, balding on top but longish black hair curling under on the sides and a beard and moustache too. He used to wear what can only be called "smocks" with V-necks and geometric designs on them. And his PENDANTS! He had a few- all large and all very hippy-cool. He would play Cat Stevens for us as we wrote. He was an English teacher. We wrote a lot and I can still sing all of the lyrics to most Cat Stevens songs!

Let's see....digging a little further in to the memories...who can forget Lwanga Lwanga! I didn't even HAVE him as a math teacher, but I had enough interactions with him (YOU! No run! WALK!) that I can never forget him. He was from somewhere in Africa, had a thick accent, an unsmiling face (most of the time), and a talent for scaring kids straight. He made my brother WALK home once to retrieve the math book he had forgotten. We lived 5 miles from the school! Ms. Wright, a cool art teacher. Mrs. Shoemeyer, a slightly ditsy home-ec teacher who had a co-hort called Ms. Heinzen. She taught us sewing, supposedly. A friend and I, inspired by an outfit she wore to school, gave her a prank call and sang "She wore BLUE VELVET!" to her at the tops of our lungs. I refuse to admit exactly how many times we did this. I don't think she ever suspected us because she took us to lunch at the Ranch Drive in at the end of the school year! Thank you, Junior High School Teachers, one and all. I know my list is not finished yet, but my energy is. For those of you tired of reading about these long ago memories, well, I will try to mix it up a little for a while.
P.S. The pic included in this post is an original drawing of yours truly from a friend in my local pub...I think it is a dead ringer!