There is Always a Reason to Dance

When Baby Tim was six weeks old, on December 19, 1970, we flew from Phoenix to New York City, and were met by Barb’s parents and sister Janet at JFK Airport. Prior to the flight, I was finishing up at work, and Barb was directing the professional movers during the pack and load process (along with caring for the two babies, of course). Well, with any move, things never go totally as planned; isn’t that the understatement of the year? The movers had loaded our ’63 Buick Riviera on the truck, and proceeded to pack items all around and above it. This included empty luggage cases, which Barb had planned to use for the kid’s clothes. The kids had gone to school for their last day. By the time she noticed that the luggage cases were missing, they were beyond the point of retrieval on the moving van. Therefore, Barb had to substitute paper grocery bags. Our station wagon was also picked up by a long distance car hauler, so I rented another station wagon to get us to the Phoenix Airport. We planned to stay at a motel located very near the airport, already anticipating that it would be a challenge to get everyone and everything to the terminal and plane; sort of like herding cats! We arrived at the motel very tired, emotionally and physically. We got all the kids bathed and bedded down, except for Tim, who slept in a playpen on a mattress. Greg, harassed Tim several times during the night, attempting to bite his foot that was sticking out of the playpen. Early in the morning, we got everyone dressed, had something to eat, and got repacked ready to head for the airport. Upon arrival, I parked the new station wagon rental in front of the terminal, and helped Barb get everyone inside. The first hurdle was that the airline didn’t have a travel container for the dog, which we had ordered weeks in advance. One of us had to wait at the counter with the dog, while they assembled the dog container. The other parent had to carry the baby, and maintain order with the other five kids and carry-on ‘luggage’. I had assigned Rick the responsibility of holding on to my heavy attaché case, which contained my entire coin collection; Rick faithfully fulfilled this job until we were all settled on the plane. We also had enlisted the services of a skycap, who went around picking up things, such as a box of fig newton cookies that we couldn’t seem to lose. By the time we were ticketed, and got the dog situated, we were running late for boarding. Therefore, we all made a beeline for the boarding gate, and arrived just in time to board. There wasn't any time left to return the rental car, so I gave the skycap a nice tip, car keys, directions on where the car was now located, and where to return the car to an off-site rental lot. This was definitely a risky move, but fortunately we were being assisted by a very honest skycap. Upon entering the plane, we realized that the six seats, which we had carefully reserved across one row, had been divided up among already seated passengers. There were indeed six seats left, but they were scattered all over, one here, one there. One stewardess started to ask people if they would consider moving to allow this family with babies to get two or more seats together. Another stewardess was attempting to find overhead space for our ‘luggage.' Believe it or not, at this time, with all eight of us standing in the center aisle, the plane started to taxi out of the gate! A perky, cute stewardess yelled to Barb, ”What is in this one?” (She was holding up the grocery shopping bag.) It was like a tennis match, the passengers immediately looked the other way, towards the exhausted, bedraggled mother for her answer, “Dirty laundry!” This reply brought the house down; a professional comedian could not have received a better laugh. When we were finally seated, I bought Barb a small bottle of champagne and attempted to console her; she really did not want to leave Phoenix.