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Daily Planet
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A smuggler's body piercing set off airport metal detectors recently in Turkey.
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[04/03/00]

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By Christine Kenneally
[03/30/00]

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Heading for home
Sometimes even the simplest things seem impossible to imagine.

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By Larry Habegger

April 4, 2000 |  What would it feel like to play baseball again? The question lingered for weeks after the phone call that invited me to a reunion of my Minnesota high school's back-to-back state champion baseball teams. It was a rhetorical question, really, because I knew how it would feel. It would feel terrific.

I hadn't swung at a baseball in so many years I could hardly count back that far. Softball, yes, but not baseball. I was in my 40th year and had stopped playing in my 21st, when childhood dreams found their final resting place in an inability to hit curveballs to the opposite field and I moved on to adult ambitions.

But to play ball again, if only once, would recapture those long-lost days of hope and promise, those days of dirt, grass and clean white lines, of leather, wood and the unparalleled crack of bat on ball. Good wood, we used to say. Do ballplayers still say that, "good wood," when they make solid contact?

Would I be young again? Of course not. But of course! One last round with old friends to celebrate the champions we once were. It may sound childish, but it kept me awake at night, rekindled dreams, brought back with stunning clarity specific plays in the field, heroic at-bats, game-winning hits that were so vivid they could have happened that afternoon. It invaded me with a nostalgic eagerness.

At that time I was working nights in a bar, fueling the itinerant writer's life, covering the mortgage, building for the future. The Friday night before I flew from San Francisco to Minneapolis for the Saturday afternoon game, I had to work till closing time, impatiently herding the stragglers out at 2 a.m. and turning to the task of cleaning up the joint. It had been an especially busy night and I was way behind schedule. By the time I got home it was nearly 4 a.m. and my flight left at 7. I fell into bed and slept maybe two hours, rising with little time to spare.

After a quick shower, I nicked myself with an unsteady hand while shaving. The blood wouldn't stop flowing and my window of time shrank. By the time I headed for the car with Paula, my wife, who would drop me off, I was running very late.

Traffic was light so early in the morning, but my heart sank when I saw the gridlocked cars trying to drop passengers at the terminal. Why was the airport so busy so early on a Saturday? It made no sense. But Paula diverted onto an adjacent road to avoid the jam and got close to my airline's check-in. I gave her a quick kiss goodbye, vaulted a low wall and wedged through the stalled cars.

I had 15 minutes to departure now, but was confident I could make it. When I entered the terminal, though, it was utter chaos. Crowds pushed and pulled, and to get to a monitor to locate the gate for my flight I had to wrestle with desperate people dragging overstuffed luggage. With bags slung over my shoulders, I began to sweat, and the nick on my upper lip began to bleed again. The only tissue I had was already stained, but I pressed it against my lip hoping to staunch the flow.

A large woman with enormous suitcases blocked my way. Impatient children squeezed past my legs and almost tripped me. A sweaty man cursed as my bag bumped his shoulder. He looked vile, but he couldn't have looked worse than I did, with sweat dripping from my nose, blood seeping through the tattered tissue, a frantic look in my eyes. I was having trouble breathing now, but finally I found a monitor, located my flight number and cursed aloud when I saw the gate listed. It was at the satellite farthest from the check-in counter, a long haul on the best of days.

Luckily I had a first-class upgrade provided by a brother who flew more than 100,000 miles annually on this airline. But I still had to get through the interminable line at security and out to the gate. Blood now covered my fingers and probably half my face as I waited for the line to creep through the metal detectors.

When I finally cleared security, I ran, dripping blood, the half mile, it seemed, to the gate, where a long line of people shuffled their feet trying to check in. I ran to the counter waving my first class upgrade.

"First class!" I said. "I'm in first class!"

The agent looked at me as if I'd just stormed across the Tiber in animal skins. "All seats are assigned. Please go to the end of the line."

Next page | Bleeding at the check-in desk