I settled down on the train ride to Concourse E which is the international concourse and, the farthest away from the terminal.
I spent the trip making eye contact with a cat which a woman had in a soft-sided carrying case and sounded like it was at least as unhappy as I was.
I started walking to gate 39 which was at the farthest end of the farthest concourse, but I stopped and went to the Crown Room to get a cup of coffee.
In the Crown Room I stopped at the front desk and gave the guy my frequent flyer number because I lost my Crown Room card about three minutes after I got it in the mail in February. Usually they give me a quick glance and welcome me. This morning, I had to provide my full address.
I went to the coffee bar, poured a packet of hot chocolate into a cup, filled it with coffee, added a little milk and an Equal and voila! Caf� Mocha. Free! Well, $250 per year, so maybe no exactly free.
I drank it down and noticed that my travails had taken another half hour so it was boarding time for the flight home.
I walked to the end of the concourse and got a hint of the procedure. There are four gates at that end of the concourse: 36-39. 36 and 37 are used as seating areas for people waiting to get to the DC flight. The entry to gates 38 and 39 are roped off. Gate 38 is not being used.
At the thus-created entry way to gate 39, there was a red coat, an Atlanta policeman, and a woman with a wand. These folks are now at every gate and are called, "Wanders" as in "We can't board until the wander gets here."
I asked the red coated woman, "What's the drill?"
She told me everyone had to wait outside the boarding area. At some point we would be cleared through into the boarding area. Thence onto the plane.
"Works for me," I said back, now, to my normal equanimity. Well, back to a good mood which may or may not be my normal state of affairs.
I was standing by for this flight - standing by for the flight and for first class so I didn't want to drift too far away. I suspected that the 30 minute-rule would be in force, so I went down to the men's room.
When I got back, I noticed there were some people in the boarding area.
I asked the red coat.
"They were standing by for this flight and they were called so we checked them through."
I told her I was standing by as well, but I had to use the men's room.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Galen."
"You go ahead and go and I'll listen for your name."
"I already went. I wanted to know if they called my name while I was, er, going."
"No. I didn't hear it."
"You're going to know a lot more about your passengers than you ever thought possible," I said.
We both laughed.
Another guy showed up. Grey hair. Senior. The Security Guy. I tried to listened to him talk to the other three. I learned he had been off for two days and was trying to get caught up on the new security measures.
"Passenger Galen, please check in at the ticket counter."
"Ah. Good."
I walked to the opening and indicated to the four people I was "Passenger Galen."
Mr. Security Guy held up his hand.
"We're trying to establish the routine, here, so give us just a minute."
"Ok."
The ticket agent caught my eye and motioned me in. I pointed to the clutch of security people and shrugged.
She cocked an eyebrow and marched over. Uh oh. She reminded me of Mrs. Moore, my fourth grade teacher. She got that exact look on her face and walked that exact way when she thought someone in the sixth grade was messing with one of her students. The security people were messing with her passenger and someone had better have a good reason.
Mr. Security Guy said he thought they should wand everyone, but he would check. He walked away, talking into his cell phone.
The ticket agent told the security people she would send me back out, but she needed to process the passengers.
Mr. Security Guy said they would match boarding passes and IDs here and do random wands at the boarding door.
They looked at my boarding pass and my license and let me though.
I got a window seat in First Class on the right side.
Not quite perfect. Perfect would have been an aisle seat, but if the forward lavatory was not usable anyway the whole reason for being in an aisle seat was made moot.
"Should I go back out?"
"No. Sit over there. If they want you, they can come and get you."
I sat.
One by one they let people in. There were a total of 27 passengers on the flight.
The jetway for gate 38 was against the far wall so you couldn't look out and see the plane. Good.
It was now 8:30 and we were not anywhere near taking off, but as my original flight was for 11, I was still three hours to the good, so I didn't care.
A ticket agent made the same announcement regarding the 30 minute rule the agent had made in Washington the day before. All passengers and crew must be in their seats for the first and last thirty minutes of the flight to Reagan National.
A man in his twenties dressed in black, carrying a black duffle bag over his left shoulder, appeared in my field of view. Mr. Security Guy came out of the jetway to meet him. The guy looked like a middleweight boxing champion.
I heard Mr. Security Guy say, "We've got two other guys on board ..."
The Boxer had to have his boarding pass put through the scanner, but he went on board. Mark one Sky Marshall.
There was a lot of sitting around, people walking in and out of the boarding door. A different ticket agent went to the door and what I considered to be a serious security breach took place as she went into the jetway.
I don't think I'll tell you what the breach was, but when Mr. Security Guy came out, I got up and stopped him.
"Talk to you a minute?" I said motioning him away from the other passengers.
"Yeah," he said warily. "What's up?"
I quietly explained what I had seen and how I thought it should be fixed.
"Are you security?" he asked even more quietly.
I swear I said this: "No, but I slept in a Holiday Inn Select last night."
The ticket agent made another announcement. The rules had changed. We would have to remain seated for the last thirty minutes, but not for the first thirty minutes of the flight. Ok. This is a work in progress.
At about 8:45 they called First Class for boarding. A woman was first in line. I was behind her. They pulled her out of line and wanded her. I walked straight on.
Lo and behold there, in the window seat right in front of me was The Boxer and he was reading a pamphlet. I put my roll aboard (with my shoulder bag inside) in the overhead and slooooooly made may way into my seat so I could look over The Boxer's shoulder and see what he was reading. "Sky Marshal's Handbook?" "Passenger Profiles?" "New Airport Security Procedures?"
No.
"Robert's Rules of Order."
"I want to take over this airplane."
"I'm sorry sir. You'll have to take your seat. I believe you'll find you're lacking a second, there."
I got myself settled and noticed that, indeed, the forward lavatory was marked occupied. I looked across the cabin and saw there was a "City of Atlanta Police" cruiser separating our plane from the others. I could also see the top of what looked like a large metal box with a blue light on the top.
A portable bomb disposal unit, I wondered?
Just then the forward lavatory door opened and the pilot walked out, closed the door behind him, and the occupied light went out.
Sometimes, as I noted before, a cigar is just a cigar.
We sat until 9:08 when the pilot came on to tell us the Auxiliary Power Unit was not working and, while that was not critical to flight, it did mean that the cart sitting next to the left hand side of the plane would have to provide the air pressure to get one engine started.
Sometimes a cigar ...
The take off and climb out was normal, unlike the day before when it felt like we had climbed steeper and faster than I had remembered.
When we reached 10,000 feet the pilot turned off the seat belt sign and the flight attendant came through to offer us breakfast. I asked for the cereal.
I have this trick I do with the banana they give you with cereal on an airplane: I peel it all the way down but only on one side, exposing half the banana. I take my knife and slice it long ways. I turn the banana, still keeping it in its little half banana peel house, and slice it the long way 90 degrees from the first slice. I now have the banana quartered along its long axis.
I then cut it in about half-inch slices across. When I scrape the banana out of the peel I have bite sized banana pieces for my cereal.
Dear Mr. Mullings: How much longer --
I'm done. I'm done.
This has impressed my next-door-neighbor fliers for years. And. I make a really big deal about it, too.
Except it doesn't work with the plastic knife you now get.
What happens is: You end up with what looks like a handful of Gerber Baby Banana and, if you're in the window seat and your seat mate has her food in front of her, you can't get up to wash it off.
The cereal was called "Kellogg's Smart Start." On the label it says it is "Sweetened multigrain flakes and crunchy rice and oat clusters cereal."
Read: This is all the stuff left over when we make Cheerios and Puffed Rice and all the other high-priced cereal. The airlines will take anything.
I read the ingredients which I won't bore you with here except to point out that one of the ingredients was something called: Pyridoxine Hydrochloride. I have to use a plastic knife and the plane is loaded with Pyridoxine Hydrochloride.
The label lists - are you ready? -- 44 ingredients.
Forty-four.
"Well, Blathers. What do you think of our new Smart Start cereal?"
"I don't know, Mr. Kellogg. I think I might need just a touch more calcium pantothenate."
"Good idea, Blathers. Here, take a case home to the wife and kids."
Shortly before half-hour-to-go mark the pilot came on and said the flight attendant would have an important safety announcement and we should please listen.
The flight attendant told everyone about the 30 minute rule again. At the 30 minute mark the seat belt light came one and everyone settled in for the last part of the flight.
The pilot came on the intercom and gave us the Washington weather - cloud cover and temperature. But he didn't give us the wind speed and direction which used to be part of the announcement.
Obviously, if you are a passenger and you don't know which direction the wind is blowing, you can't know whether you will be landing in Washington from the North or the South. Good idea.
As it happened we approached from the south. The normal approach is for pilots to visually find Mount Vernon then turn north up the Potomac River aiming for the airport which makes for about a 10 mile final approach.
We turned on final way, way before we got to Mount Vernon and stayed on the course straight into the airport.
One of the safety procedures is for approaching and departing aircraft to fly straight routes into or away from the appropriate runway so controllers can tell if a flight is deviating well away from the airport.
As we landed and braked to a halt at the northern end of the runway we turned left to head back to the Delta gates. It was just about 1:00 pm, Sunday October 7.
I looked out my window and saw the two Presidential Marine helicopters heading across the Potomac back toward Andrews Air Force base.
I turned to the woman sitting next to me and pointed to them.
"The President is back from Camp David early," I said. "Something's up."
NOTE: The Sunday afternoon in question was the day the United States started the bombing campaign in Afghanistan. The President had returned early to go on national TV to inform us that we had, indeed, begun to fight back.