The October Flight Home
We made it home OK, but being a quadriplegic, you have to be on the lookout for almost anything. At the airport in Hangzhou, we had to check my wheelchair and use the airport’s wheelchair to go to the gate. At the gate, the assistant would not let me take the chair out of the terminal. My Dad ignored him and pushed me to the loading bus. The assistant again demanded the chair and we tried to tell him that I could not walk. My Dad did a wheelchair wheelie and in the bus we went to the surprise of the assistant. He rode with us to the plane. The plane was not parked at the terminal and was at least a half mile away. We were the last ones to board and kept looking for a Skychef truck to load me in the plane like what was done in Beijing. No Skychef truck in sight anywhere. The Captain and 1st Officer came down the loading ramp along with the flight attendants. They looked around for a Skychef truck, waited a few moments, and then motioned for my Dad and I to get on the plane. I said I could not walk and I don’t think they could understand English. No matter, they kept motioning and pointing to the plane. My Dad must have figured it out. He got down on his knees in front of me and drug me up on his back, then up the stairs to the airplane. It happened so quickly and he didn’t miss a step. Yea! We were luck enough to see two sun rises and two sunsets on the same day, one sunrise in Hangzhou, a sun set north of Japan at 40,000 feet, another sunrise over Alaska a few hours later, and a sun set in Chicago, all on October 9. Amazing.
Add comment April 26th, 2008
