The Fathers' Day Saga

Yes, we are back from our annual Fathers' Day trip to Ohio to visit our grandchildren (oh, yes, and their parents, too) and attend oldest granddaughter Marcy's Big Dance Recital. We had a wonderful time, of course ... although the trip home was a bit taxing. But we'll get to that.

On Friday morning we flew from Reagan National Airport in Washington (one of about 750,000 things the Republicans made sure were named for St Reagan) to Dayton. The flight was delayed for about an hour because of "crew rest" issues (you'd have thought they'd just find an already-rested crew, but noooo....), and so we spent an extra hour with 2500 of our closest friends in the Black Hole of Calcutta 2 (aka, Gate 35A, from which all the little regional flights at DCA depart).

Anyhow ...

We finally made it to Dayton and were picked up by our son Jason and his family. We then started on a whirlwind weekend that included ...

The boys burning off a little energy on the neighbor's trampoline ...

Marcy posing for pictures in her dance costumes (this was a pose from the show finale) ...

Joe demonstrating his hockey gear ...

And Noah revealing himself as a Jedi Knight in training ...

Tabitha, the Best Daughter-in-Law in the World, also came up with a wonderful low-calorie dessert to celebrate the weekend ...

Of course, we had all the usual and expected drama that goes along with a big weekend, which included driving frantically to get to Marcy's Saturday afternoon final dress rehearsal on time, only to discover - when we were nearly at the theater - that she'd forgotten the bag with her dance shoes in it. This necessitated a Mission: Impossible-type flying rendezvous in which Jason drove from home to meet us in a restaurant parking lot, where we pulled the cars up next to each other and he tossed the shoe bag to me, whereupon Tabitha burned rubber out of the lot, zoomed to the Victoria Theater, and slowed down to 35 to let Agnes and Marcy jump out while she and I found a place to park the car. Oddly, it all worked out.

The dance recital on Saturday evening was, naturally, a huge success. Marcy danced three routines (tap, Tahitian, and jazz) and also danced in the grand finale, which was spectacular. She did a wonderful job and we were very proud.

After the show, we all piled into the van, picked up the boys at the baby-sitter's house, and then went out for post-show ice cream and Taco Bell.

Saturday morning was Fathers' Day, and Tabitha cooked up a mountain of French Toast for all of us so that we'd be fortified for the trip back to the airport. Naturally, we had to do the Proud Grandparents photo first ...

We made it to the Dayton airport in plenty of time to catch our flight back to DC. We got all checked in, the flight took off right on time ... and then the adventure began ...

You may have seen the story on CNN about the Dayton-to-DC flight that was the subject of a bomb threat. Well, yes, that was our flight. We spent several hours sitting on the ramp in the airplane, surrounded by every flashing light in the world, then on hot buses after they let us off the plane (with strict instructions to leave everything on board), and then later in a large conference room in one of the remote airport buildings. We were all wanded, patted down, and marched from place to place under close supervision of a small army of DC Airport Police, TSA officers, FBI agents, and a US Marshall or two, each of whom appeared to need to take down all our personal contact information at some point or another. We were finally able to use a single bathroom ... one at a time, don't flush when you're done, let the police officer check the room and flush it for you (probably not something advertised in police recruiting) ... and the airline conjured up snacks and water to keep us quiet while the airplane was searched by the police and the bomb dogs.

The 44 passengers turned out to be a good-natured bunch that took the whole thing in stride, despite the inconvenience and potential for disaster. The passengers included a full band (with singer) returning from a gig in Dayton, and a young couple just married and on their way to their honeymoon in Paris (they made a later connection and the honeymoon was saved). The FBI agent in charge (to the extent anyone seemed to be) was very pleasant and acknowledged the disruption in everyone's plans ... he noted that it was Fathers' Day and his wife had agreed to take the children all day so he could spend the day in his woodworking shop, so he was just as aggravated as the rest of us. He answered whatever questions he could, deferred many of them to the harassed-looking USAirways representative, and generally kept everyone calm and reasonably happy. One of the most-frequently-asked questions was whether or not we'd get a chance to meet individually with the ass clown who made the original bomb threat (and was under arrest in Dayton). Sadly, you can guess the answer.

We were finally released about 5:00 PM, hot, tired, somewhat grouchy, but safe ... which is, after all, the most important thing. We'd been able to reach our daughter and get her to recover Nessa from the kennel ...

...so everything turned out well.

And now, here we are, home again on a rainy Monday morning. I have one final day of leave to relax before hitting the office again tomorrow, and I plan to make the most of it.

All you dads out there, I hope you had a happy Fathers' Day. You are doing the most important job you will ever do, and it's not a bad thing to recognize it once a year. Good on 'ya!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo