Ostensibly a lament about wine; more accurately a diatribe against any airline employee who ever thought about sleeping with George Michael (back when this was still considered something of a feat and not typically accomplished in a pissoir); and a call to others to resist any future temptation to toss a life ring to a certain State when it inevitably gets sucked down a whirlpool of its own making.
In addition to the usual factors affecting the actuarial tables of a bottle of alcohol, coming into my possession has often resulted in a few more- none positive.
The frequent travel incident to my most-recent prior profession allowed me the opportunity to steadily amass a decent collection of assorted grape distillates, including a treasured subset from Spain, Portugal, and their respective far-flung possessions. Getting all these bottles back to America was a process begging for its own story, but I got everything back within the borders of the U.S. intact and unharmed. It has been the intracontinental movement of my hoard that has provided the danger to the well-being of my otherwise well-shepherded stock.
First, the petite tragedie. The bottle shown above, a 1994 Gran Reserva Faustino I Rioja, is the hoarier-looking brother of the dearly departed at the center of this tale. Its relative was given to me some years ago as a meaningful farewell gift by the Master of a U.S.-flagged merchant vessel (alas, there aren't many of these now) who had flawlessly carted me about the Seven Seas- literally. I bid goodbye to the Master and the ship, and with my already-cherished acquisition made my way ashore to the Hellenic island adjacent to the ship's anchorage. In the interest of anonymity, I'll refer to the Master as Wilbur. I thought very highly of him, and not solely because he once circled his huge ship around a tiny island with a television transmitter for over 2 hours just so I could watch a Formula 1 race. Wilbur was a great guy, and I was looking forward to getting his gift back to my cellar, where I intended to truly enjoy it years later once it had reached its apogee of maturation. The bottle stayed with me, heavily cushioned in the center of my backpack, throughout my much-segmented journey: to the mainland, on the flight to Paris, the transatlantic flight to New York, and on to Cincinnati, where I was to board the final 55-minute flight to my destination.
My means of conveyance for this leg was a small commuter jet operated by Comair, a subsidiary of the airline listed on my ticket. I was familiar with these flights, and knew what to expect- no overhead bins; anywhere within 15 feet of the lavatory in the back would smell like a campground outhouse on an August Sunday afternoon after a family jamboree where the grilled chicken didn't quite make it up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit; and a standard-issue male flight attendant who would endeavor to make the experience resemble back-to-back episodes of any show on HGTV. (Note: with the desire to avoid the malicious computer hacking, hissing picket lines outside my residence and sarcastic, surly service at the new restaurant downtown which would inevitably otherwise transpire, I shall reluctantly refrain from detailing here the many juvenile but entertaining ways in which the acronym "HGTV" has been deciphered in my household.)
Sean, the flight attendant, was performing his dramatic role as gatekeeper of the ladder leading from the tarmac into the fuselage, and would not allow me to board the aircraft with my backpack. (Note 2: prospective parents- give your son a gender-ambiguous name, and instantly double the chances that 25 years later, during the pre-Thanksgiving dinner football game on TV, he and the chap he brought home are going to find entertainment value in the fabulous physiques of the players, and not the accompanying sporting spectacle.) Sean sibilantly insisted that since it wouldn't fit under my seat, he would tag it and stick it in the back. I resisted the impulse to make a sophomoric retort.
I was wary of losing possession of the backpack, even for 5 minutes; however, I had gone through this process many times before and knew how innocuous it had been- they slip a fluorescent-hued paper tag on the item, place it in the aforementioned compartment, and at the other end, they gingerly load it onto a trolley cart and wheel it over to the aircraft ladder, where you pick it up and continue on your way into the terminal. As much as I wished to protect the contents from harm or misappropriation (and the backpack also contained such irreplaceable items as my complete medical records), my rapid mental risk management convinced me to render unto Sean that which belonged to me, and proceed to Seat 2A.
I had experienced an embarassing incident on one of these short hops a couple of years before this flight; one that had predisposed me to distrust the entreaties of the small-fry flight attendants and regard them as a kind of Double-A variant of the Big League peanut and beverage-mongers. The FA (Flight Attendant, although this acronym also translates well into other expressions) in this earlier incident was maitre d'hotel of a short flight out of O'Hare who unkindly noticed that I was attempting to conceal a split and badly overpacked garment bag under my legs in a row with no underseat stowage.
The bag had breached partly because my arriving flight was 30 minutes late and had naturally docked at the gate farthest away from my connecting flight, causing me to have to again perform the graceless version of the OJ-dashing-through-the-airport terminal imitation and enter the plane red-faced and drenched in sweat as the other passenges glared at me, the reason for their delay. In front of the packed flight, she politely but forcefully insisted that I surrender the bag to her for safekeeping. After an actual tug-of-war, she victoriously jammed it into a tiny space immediately aft of the cockpit... wait- oh, never mind... which caused the bag to rip open even more and allowed all of my travelling companions to thoroughly witness the results of my very foolish decision to pack everything I had both taken and acquired on my week-long trip into a flimsy vinyl bag. The incident was remarkably similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zg3fT0mdCw
At the other end of the flight, I bounded to the front of the cabin and retrieved my bag as inconspicuously as possible from the jet marm- I could barely contain the contents with both arms, and I descended the stairs off the aircraft and bolted for the terminal ahead of the other passengers, desperately clutching the bursting cornucopia containing my travel paraphernalia.
I thought I had escaped safely without further injury to my wobbly dignity, when just then I heard a woman some distance behind me loose a perfect specimen of a particular rare, full-throated, explosive, ear-splitting hyena laugh- the likes of which only Carol Burnett at her peak could intentionally simulate, and which, experience informed me, could only be the result of a lady in the company of a close friend witnessing something highly embarassing. Before I could answer the paranoid question "what had I done now?," I heard a man amusedly say "was Tom Jones on this flight?"
I realized to my Anglo-Saxon horror that a pair of my BVD briefs must have escaped my garment bag and was now sprawled out on the ground in front of every debarking passenger on my flight. I did not turn around. I did not slow down. In fact, I was walking at Mach .65 when I then realized that the pre-worn pair of lost skivvies also prominently sported my name in indelible black ink on its waistband (a requirement of my employer- really.) I didn't stop until I had exited the terminal and was speeding out of the parking lot in my car, dirty clothes and toiletries strewn about the passenger seat and floor, the bag having now achieved complete incontinence. And after years of intermittent reflection, I am still convinced that my forsaken underwear remains a veteran tenant of some faded and dusty lost-and-found box at the airport security office, only occasionally removed for 3rd-shift new employee initiations and biennial mandatory training sessions.
I reflected again on this incident as I sat in Seat 2A, attempting to filter out Sean's incessant histrionics, while reminding myself to begin the process of cultural reacclimatization with my Midwestern homeland by once again speaking nasally, referring to carbonated beverages as pop and throttling back on the use of the term "y'all." The latter is of arguable pertinence, since as far up as Grand Forks, North Dakota, hillbillies will be found within 10 statute miles of any incorporated city. There is even a Canadian version of the subspecies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlS-hN6EmIA&feature=related
Still somewhat deep in thought, I found myself standing on the tarmac under blazing sunshine waiting for my backpack to be retrieved from the aircraft. Instead of the usual routine where a member of the ground crew would pull out the bags and set them on the trolley cart, I was treated instead to the sight of tagged item after item being fired from inside the ten foot-high compartment as if from an arbalest, then arcing down and thudding onto the concrete. The fourth item to be so launched was my backpack, which struck the pavement with the jaw-clenching violence of an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. As the beast-eyed, simian troglodyte responsible insouciantly emerged from the cargo compartment, I stood there motionless, my mouth agape. From fifty feet away, I could see my backpack begin to bleed onto the tarmac, the precious rioja again free to obey gravity. All this way, only to be mortally felled just feet from the finish line. Though I lodged a complaint with Sean's roommate inside the terminal, Comair never followed up, and neither did I. I have not yet found a domestic source for Faustino I. To this day, my medical records up to 2004 are edged in brownish-purple.
So much for the minor loss. Two years later, a true blasphemy to Bacchus was perpetrated.
The movers had shown up at our suburban D.C.-area residence to package and transport our possessions to my next professional locale in Southern California. The moving company estimated the process to take most of a week, packing included, and to fill a complete long-haul tractor-trailer. It was mid-August with 80 per cent humidity, and I was glad that my wife and I were only going to be responsible for loading up the Jeep for a cross-country drive. The three packing ladies were polite and able to ask us questions in intelligible English. On Wednesday, the loading crew arrived, albeit 4 hours late. They were forced to park the semi in front of the house and block one of the two lanes of the street, which was actually named a highway and served as such. The driving demeanor and skill level of Maryland drivers being what it is, all three of the reflective orange plastic warning triangles placed upstream of the truck were run over and destroyed within 40 minutes. The crew was all Black, and there was immediate friction between them and the packing ladies, who were all Latina (although the Honduran and Guatemalan ladies kept sniping at their Mexican counterpart for her alleged laziness). The men started out swaggering and cocky, assuring me that everything was on track regardless of their tardiness.
By mid-afternoon the bloom was off the rose. The men began to gripe and a second crew was called in to assist. This crew was all Latino. Less than an hour later I was standing in the front yard prying the two foremen apart after they had begun fighting, while nearby, my pregnant wife remained holed-up in the bathroom with the cats. The newly-arrived crew stormed off to the taunts of the first squad.
The men labored on into the night, like a Ford Pinto with a blown head gasket attempting to ascend Pike's Peak. At 7:30, one of the fellows (referred to by the others as Reverend someone or other) approached me in the living room. He looked like the twin brother of Otis from Animal House, only with a shorter coiffure.
Shamalama what?
With bleary yellow eyes, he pleaded with me- "Sir, I gots to get some beer." I told him I would give them some once they were done, and they got their 12-packs that night at 11:30 when they said they had filled up their truck and could do no more. There was still a third of the household goods remaining. My wife and I fell asleep long after midnight, with the truck's diesel engine continuing to idle loudly out front in the street, since the driver remained passed out on our lawn until 4:30 a.m., when he crawled into the cab, released the air brakes and slowly drove away.
At precisely 8 a.m. the next morning, two different fellows from the company's A-team arrived and quietly and professionally had the remaining third of the house packed into their truck by early afternoon. Their competence caused my opinion of the prior day's cast of characters to become rather lower; in fact, only one notch higher than the crew a decade earlier who had quickly converted my 20 dollars in foolishly-proffered lunch money into a few double-deuce bottles of Colt 45 ("Yo, Billy Dee, whatta YOU do to max yo' relax?"), whereupon I found the crew later that afternoon arising from a nap in the garage. Their foreman didn't see me in the doorway standing behind him as he stretched and yawned and said to the two gentlemen who were facing me (with faces of frightened horror straight out of a Little Rascals episode), "So Homeboy says we can fit that couch up the stairs, so I guess we got to make that motherf***er happy." Ah, movers and I go way back...
A reasonable person might have asked, many paragraphs ago, "what's the point of all this?" It is that my carefully-cultivated wine cache needed to go to California, too. Some of it would have to be boxed and shipped in the moving truck as there was simply no room for it in the Jeep. But the absolute top-shelf of my collection could accompany us across country. I thought that I had the entire problem thoroughly cogitated, with all possible factors addressed. In the end, it was the thought of the ill effects of a hot Arizona or Oklahoma night in the Jeep while we slept in an adjacent motel that convinced me to ship everything with the movers. The bottles would be packed inside of wads of heavy paper and securely taped within a thick cardboard box within stacks of many adjoining cardboard boxes, all within a nearly hermetically sealed huge trailer. In order to reduce the temperature transients even further, I had stowed the really good stuff in a large cooler. I pictured the 3 hours crossing the Mojave (the most threatening conditions I foresaw) as posing no significant risk.
The wines of highest concern to me were in addition to the many bottles of Bordeaux, Barolo and Dingac (you've likely never heard of that last one) of which I was also fond. There were also other hard-to-get liquors like a Limited Edition Jameson's Pure Pot Still and a Metaxa 12-star. Among the items I truly wished to preserve and protect were a '69 Gonzalez Byass Oloroso Sherry, a '63 Leacock's Sercial Madeira, and a '12 Niepoort Colheita Port. 1912.
The two professionals who wrapped up the move did one more thing before they left. They conducted a very thorough inspection of everything they packed, especially the things which had been outside the DC house and then had me certify the inspection in writing. This was to prevent the transport of Gypsy Moths. Well, I was happy to fight this scourge.
At the other end of the trip, after we had blown up the air mattress in our new residence and began our adoption of California culture by having our first "animal-style" In-N-Out burger, checking out the spa out back, and figuring out what a palapa was, we were informed that our household goods were not going to be arriving as expected on the Friday before Labor Day. Oh. Well, we'd adapt and rough it for a few more days.
The goods arrived two days after Labor Day, and the Mexican gentlemen sent to unpack worked so hard and efficiently and without any complaint that I had an epiphany about just how truly lazy I am. Then I received a call on my cell phone from a lady at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, who nonchalantly explained to me that, since it had originated in Maryland, our moving truck had been tagged as suspicious at the Needles Border Protection Station and had to be inspected for Gypsy Moth infestation. And, since the truck had arrived at the station late Thursday, it had to be impounded until an inspection crew became available on the next regular workday, which would be the following Tuesday. It began to sink into me that the entire trailer had sat in the middle of the Mojave Desert soaking up the sun in late August for more than 4 consecutive days. Here is some climate information about Needles from Wikipedia:
Needles, like Death Valley to the northwest, is known for extreme heat during the summers. Temperatures in Needles routinely reach 120 °F (49 °C) in late July and early August. The Needles weather station is frequently reported by the United State government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the site of the highest daily temperature recorded in the U.S. during the hot desert summers. Needles occasionally sets national or world daily high temperature records. On July 17, 2005, the high temperature at Needles was 125 °F (52 °C), the hottest temperature ever recorded in Needles since record keeping began in 1940, breaking the previous all-time record high of 123 °F (51 °C) four days earlier). On July 22, 2006, about one year later, Needles experienced a record high low temperature, with a temperature recorded to be 98 °F (37 °C) at 5 AM with a high temperature exceeding 120 °F (49 °C). The wettest year was 1965 with 9.50 inches and the driest year was 2006 with 0.70 inches.
The impounding of our truck occured in late August 2006, a year noted twice above.
I found the nearest of the liquor boxes and opened it. The first bottle unwrapped was a Marquez de Murrieta '94 Castillo Ygay Gran Reserva Especial Rioja. The cork appeared to have emerged about a centimeter, and a single tear of wine had fittingly wept its way to just above the label. The next bottle was a real favorite of mine, the last of my procurement of '00 Quinto do Bacalhoa. It had met the same fate as the Ygay, but without the weeping. I was nearly providing my own at this point.
It appeared to be a total loss. I can still only guess this, because 6 years later I continue to haul what's left around with me, in denial of the harsh truth. Maybe one survived. Every year or so I make a lonely solemn pilgrimmage to the cellar on a night I'm alone, and grimly open one of the undead bottles, only to have my faint hopes utterly dashed as the smell of vinegar meets my nose. And I slowly traipse up the stairs and silently pour the contents of the bottle down the drain, expressionless, much the same as if I had just buried the family dog. Some day, in the decades to come, I will have finished this rite and the matter will be finally put to rest. My wife has long since given up trying to convince me to get it over with at once and just dispose of it all; it is one of those subjects about which she knows not to hector me.
At least my loss was not in vain. For I do have the great satisfaction of knowing that I did my part to prevent the ruin of the State of California.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gGZAIFteAg
Salut.
