Cousins in Arms

It is no secret to anyone who knows me or is around me for long that my family is the most important part of my life. Mom, Dad, Brothers, Sisters, their husbands, and wives, and all their children. This month, daughters of my two older brothers will be in different parts of Asia doing some amazing work. Scott and Anne's two daughters, Lyndsey and Adelaide (Addie) landed first, and Steve and Teri's daughter, Hayley, touches down later this month.

These three Cousins in Arms are amazing young women, doing amazing work, and defining unique and interesting paths full of conviction and dedication. To be sure, these are three wildly different women. And I've got four other nephews and nieces forging dynamic paths for themselves too. But in that these three all found themselves in Asia, working with, empowering and helping children less fortunate then themselves speaks to commonality of spirit which is inspiring whether seen individually or together.

Lyndsey, 17:
16 years old. What were you doing? I was running 70-95 miles a week and cutting my teeth on the muddy trails of Eugene, Oregon. As tough and defining as that was for my young life it pales in comparison to what Lyndsey courageously took on last year. She applied for and won the opportunity to pack her bags and move to to Khon Kean, Thailand as part of a Rotary exchange program. It wasn’t an easy year. In fact, I think it’d be safe to say it was brutal. She was learning a new language, immersing herself real Thai culture, all the while dealing with being a 16-year-old girl. Personally, I can’t imagine. But I saw some of it and through it amazed at her ability to keep taking steps through the process. She made great strides to grow up and live in another culture at the same time. Brutal. And admirable.

She also got to head up to Pattaya and see her cousin, Hayley. The time in Pattaya and other things she saw and experienced inspired her Senior Class project when she returned home last year. Then, in a life of brave things, Lyndsey did the bravest. That’s right, she took her parents to Thailand this June. Her return trip culminated with the delivery of $4090.00 to the Pattaya Orphanage raised from her Senior project, and a reinvigorated love and appreciation (Returning to a Land of Smiles) for the place that helped shape her from a 16 year old girl into a young woman.

Adelaide, 20:
Cerebral, artistic, wildly creative and smart Addie spent the year before last in Italy before heading to her first year of college at Western Washington University. She is studying, among about 32 other things, women’s studies and was led to a program called the Little Sisters Fund. Earlier this year she embarked on a letter writing, fund and awareness raising campaign to raise restricted money to specifically support this organization and as many young women there as possible. This accomplished (she raised over $5,000) she dug into her own pocket and bought a plane ticket and headed to Nepal for the summer to volunteer with the Little Sister Fund and the Ama Ghar Orphanage. Her work will give her untold insight and knowledge, and her blog and updates continue to build awareness and funds in support of this important work. 

Hayley, 21:
Steve’s daughter Hayley spent 9 + months in Thailand last year volunteering her time, brilliant energy, giving spirit and endless care and defense to those less fortunate. It is clear that Hayley truly found a home in Thailand. And she found it right smack dab in the middle of the dark underbelly of the sex trade at the Pattaya Orphanage. As was pointed out to me when I was there “this is one of the few orphanages in the world where little boys outnumber little girls because in this culture, in this particular place, a women (or a girl) is worth much more than man.” And Hayley’s work continues through her education, relationships, connections and time. She’ll return to Pattaya, Thailand this month, roll up her sleeves, smile from ear to ear, and get to work.

All Good Things,
Wig

The False First Class

"...we are rapidly returning to those days when only rich folks will be able to fly."
It appears we may be on a direct flight back to the good old days of air travel. Dress codes, linen, attendants in heals and funny hats, assigned seating, glamour, travel for the rich, travel only for the few.

Oddly, I know some who might actually welcome this development. I’ve heard them loudly derail the demise of the airline industry, the cattle calls of Southwest airline, the unassigned seating, the superheated food, and charges for beverages on domestic flights. Travel for the middle class, travel for the common, travel for the masses.

The loudest and most consistent cry for the “good old days” seem to be coming from a group I call the False First Class. I also know them as the Point Rich, or the Miles Bankers, or even the Curtain Chasers, but they are also know in the industry simply as the Business Traveler. This group amasses bundles and bundles miles and/or points and with them awards that allow purchases or upgrades (with points or miles or a nominal fee) to the occasional or even frequent keys to first class airlines seats, and the corresponding service it affords. 

Unfortunately, it also purchases them; more times than not, a corresponding attitude that belies the real reason that they are even sitting in first class. Not because they are wealthy, first class, nor would or could ever actually pay a first class fare. They are there because they’ve been granted access as a perk for traveling so much, because they are decidedly middle class, decidedly workers, and decidedly not first class. These miles are work miles. These points tell the story of their commonness not their opulence, style, education or sophistication. They may actually tell an opposite story not dissimilar to one told by the big flashy car about the homuncular driver.

I have friends only slightly more well off (possibly less educated, marginally less sophisticated, and absolutely NOT of a higher class) than me who claim, “I never travel coach”. That seems like a lot of pressure to put on yourself and an even greater loss of opportunity. I’ve met some the most interesting, scrappy, close to the earth travelers in coach. Traveling in the cheap seats I’ve met numerous doctors, lawyers, artists, researchers, students, teachers kids, moms, dads and entrepreneurs and even Nobel laureates and rock stars! All this from the lowly back seats.

Of course, it is human nature that to have tasted and flirted or even become comfortable in a first class world to naturally chaff and nash under the request or even the suggestion that we then settle back and weasel and squirm our way into seat 37F. So, I don’t blame my false first class friends for their attitude. Misplaced as it might be.

You see I’ve been fortunate enough to be one of the False First Classers. And let me tell you, it’s grand. Oh my god! Paaaaleasseee…..When I’m in coach I deliberately board last. But when I’m in first class I get on as soon as I can. I just love it. I particularly love watching coach passengers roll on by, head cast down, while I have a sip of my pre-flight sparking vino, and laugh with a gay nonchalance. Like all this is normal. Yes, I could get used to this. I like this. I do this very very well. Yes, I deserve this; this is the only way I’ll ever travel.

NOT.

I’m grateful false first classer. I don’t have many delusions. A couple perhaps, but hell…I’m grateful. Period. End of story. I’m grateful even if I’m flying is seat 37F, crammed against a window outbound from Hong Kong and the woman next to me just vomited all over me. Vomit isn’t fun, but flight is awesome. What flight allows is extraordinary whether I’m cramped in coach, feeling good with a bulkhead seat, or spread out and hammered in first class. It’s just transportation. Jeez. Get over it.

Sometimes my false first class friends look down the long arc of their nose in disbelief when I look far too comfortable in my coach class seat, or heaven forbid, and even desire it. They’ve found themselves, quite accidentally in most cases, in a new world and loath the thought of my ratty ol road trip, a bumpy crowded bus ride, a clattering train, or squatting along a dusty street for a meal and living as close to the earth and to people as I can.

Having sat in countless airline seats and on countless airlines I can speak from experience, Class is defined by much more than by where you are seated. I’ve been ridiculed and even judged at times by an unwillingness and deliberate refusal to ride in the narrowly defined and often highly oppressive and pressurized first class, or first world, seat. And besides, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone, if I’ve been able to make it into first class the number of times I have there is something screwed up in the system.

And this is dirty little secret of first class airline travel, and too, of the False First Class. On any given flight and estimated 80-90 percent of the first class passengers reclining in their wide-body seats are there on points, not money. Put another way, only one or two seats in a common first class section are occupied by actual first class passengers. The rest are the False First Class.

Isn’t this what really started the airline industry on its descent from the lofty and glamorous “good old days”.

What my false first class friends don’t want to hear is that the same economics that superficially fabricated them into first class are the exact same trends that created Southwest, Jet Blue, discount fares, awards, package deals, and every other perk, cheap seat and cheap plastic and cheap electronic gadget in our society. Southwest didn't single handedly kill first class or the airline industry. In truth they followed the lead of United, Delta and American. When they and other airlines moved the curtain and allowed coach travelers into the first class world they, indeed, heralded the end of the golden age of flight. The same exact same trends that created the budget airlines also pushed aside the curtain and perhaps momentarily, built a False First Class.

There was a time when the curtain between first and coach classes was actually a wall. Now it is simply a tattered rag worn thin by the countless meritless masses who like a frantic Wizard of Oz struggle and posture to maintain a smoky façade of grandeur and intimidation while exclaiming “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” That is a delusion of a falsely purchased aristocracy and a constructed separation that dehumanizes everyone involved.

So if you are one of these curtain chargers, I’ve been one, and you bemoan the state of an airline industry for the masses, you’re on a plane with only one wing. And you’re copping an attitude you have not earned and embracing a class world you don’t actually reside in. You may visit there at 30 thousand feet but back on the ground chances are you drive a car similar to mine, struggle with unexpected expenses, sweat over your work, and just like the rest of us squirm through a life that is generally “coach-class” but that from time to time finagles the system into a higher class.

I don’t begrudge anyone for playing up. So long, that is, as they don’t do it on the backs of others or think that the difference between themselves and those huddled behind them is any more significant than a seat number. Class, in this instance, isn’t defined by where you’re seated. If things continue we may indeed return to the good old days of flight where only the truly rich and glamorous fly. But I, as a humble False First Classer, will be careful what I wish for.

I’m off to laundry mat.

All good things,
Wig