I had occasion to visit family in the New York area last week. The weather was soft, pleasant, very non-Decemberish for the Northeast. We took walks, drove to nearby restaurants and parks, and in general had a low-key great time.
One of the more pleasant discoveries I made before leaving Memphis was that Delta flies into White Plains, New York, out of Atlanta, making it possible to avoid the insanity of LaGuardia or JFK and still land in the NYC area.
The White Plains airport is tiny — one baggage carousel and one waiting area for all departing flights. You want a drink? Go to the snack bar/newsstand and order a cocktail to-go (to a nearby seat, if you can find one). It’s a long line, with the same beleaguered clerk selling bottles of water, Cheez-Its, magazines, neck pillows, M&M’s — and mixing gin and tonics in her spare time. Good luck.
But despite its small size, large jets come and go into White Plains, supplying hassle-free air travel to the swells living in White Plains, Greenwich, Fairfield, and other upscale ’burbs. It’s a great way to avoid the grinding traffic of LGA or JFK, so call me a swell. (Dad Joke Warning: Despite its misleading name, not all the planes in the White Plains airport are white.)
On my Sunday return flight, I had a 40-minute layover in Detroit, which is tight timing given the vicissitudes of modern air travel. My seat mate was a woman I guessed to be around my own age. We did the obligatory, “Hi,” then fastened seat belts, dug into carry-ons, and turned to our reading — me, a Michael Chabon novella; she, a legal-looking document onto which she occasionally scribbled margin notes. It was a short flight, and as we began to descend into Detroit, she said, “I’ve got to get off this plane in a hurry. I’ve only got 30 minutes to catch my connecting flight.”
“You’ve got me beat,” I said. “I have 40 minutes.”
Eye rolls and shoulder shrugs.
“What brought you to White Plains?” I asked, as we bumped below the cloud cover.
“Visiting my grandchildren,” she said, flashing a picture from her phone.
I nodded approvingly.
“Cute!” I said, returning serve with a photo of my own.
Then she asked me what I did for a living. I admitted I was a journalist, and she confessed that she was an attorney from Kansas City.
After a moment of silence, she asked, “Did you talk to your children about politics? My son is 40 and he and his wife are really not excited about Biden.”
“Nor are any of my kids,” I said.
“They say they’ll vote for him because there’s no alternative, but they are just really tired of Boomers running things.”
“I get that,” I said. “I remember in ’92 I was really sick of old guys like Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. after 12 years. I remember being so excited when Clinton won. It seemed like a miracle. Presidents weren’t supposed to like Fleetwood Mac or wear jogging shorts. It seemed like we finally had a president we could relate to, which was mind-blowing after ol’ Ronnie Raygun.”
“I remember Reagan was literally senile at the end,” she said. “And I couldn’t believe Clinton won either. He was the first Boomer president.”
“Now he’s 77,” I said, “the same age as Trump.”
“Lord help us. If Trump wins, we’re so screwed.”
“And it’s weird to think about it — Biden’s older than Reagan was when he left office — but at least he’s not using astrology readings to make decisions.”
“Yeah, I think Biden’s a decent man,” she said. “I know that’s a low bar, but it’s more than I can say about the other guy.”
“True that.”
We taxied to a stop and I bid farewell to my 10-minute friend who I’ll never see again. Maybe Biden should rebrand his campaign, I thought: “Be patient. I’m just a short layover.”
