Best Mother's Day Weekend Ever

Our next trip started out like a lion and ended up terrific. Morgan and Jake were graduating from Radford University on Saturday with their Bachelor’s Degrees and Jessica was coming as a surprise to celebrate with us all. The plan was for her to arrive on Thursday evening and drive to Radford on Friday with Bob, Truman and me, where we would meet up with Leigh and Kendall and the Anderson family to celebrate the event. Morgan and Jake’s roommate, Alex had planned a surprise party for them on Friday and we were all looking forward to family time.

Jessica’s first flight to Charlotte NC was on time and efficient and we were excited that her surprise visit was working out. But then, and without going into too much detail, because we truly haven’t decided how to deal with this, she became a victim of an angry employee at American Airlines. I, like so many of us, have been very sympathetic to airline employees over these past few years. Customers refusing to comply with required safety wear, becoming threatening and abusive, even violent, have certainly have put them in terrible positions of wanting to provide customer service but deserving respect and safety themselves. But this situation was unreal. Jessica, and all her fellow flyers boarded the plane to Norfolk on time. But the plane just sat there. Eventually, the passengers were told to deboard. This was around 11 pm. The reason? Not weather. Not mechanical. No. The plane couldn’t fly because there was no pilot. And no pilot could be found. The frustrated passengers left the plane and lined up at the gate agent to see what could be done to get them to their destination.

Now I don’t fly often. But when I do, I often note that airlines oversell seats and offer cash or future flights to passengers to give up their seats. And I have received hotel vouchers when planes couldn’t leave the airport due to weather, which is clearly not the fault of the airline. But when Jessica reached the gate agent, who was clearly angry and frustrated at that point, she was told there was nothing that could be done, and that she could get a flight to Norfolk at 4 pm the next day. I was on the phone with her and had told her that there were numerous flights in the morning and that at the least they could offer her a hotel voucher, so she asked the gate agent if there were any of these options. The agent became increasingly angry and abusive, and insisted that she would have to wait until late afternoon the next day and that no help would be given by the airline. Jessica then noticed that a flight to Norfolk was available and leaving in the next hour a few gates away by the same airline and so went to that gate and asked if she could get on that flight. There, the better trained gate agent told her she could and began to give her a ticket. At that point, the first gate agent came over, insisted that she had already told Jessica that she couldn’t leave that evening, and because she was the supervisor, not only refused to let her get on the plane, but had security remove Jessica from the American Airlines area. The security guards, escorting a now crying Jessica from the area, assured her that they, too, had been verbally abused by that gate agent and expressed their sympathy for Jessica. At this point, I arranged for a morning flight on another airline, and Jessica attempted to get her checked luggage off the plane. She was told it would be in Norfolk as it would be sent on the plane she was not allowed to fly on that evening. So, she slept in a chair in the airport and flew out on a United flight early Friday.

But it didn’t end there. When she got to Norfolk, we went to claim her luggage. Which was still in Charlotte. And remained there all weekend, despite the assurances of American Airlines that they would deliver it to our hotel in Radford. It finally made it back to Memphis a few hours after Jessica got home.

From now on, I will refer to it as American (we don’t give a crap about you) Airlines.

Shaking that off, we had a very pleasant drive to Radford, and arrived around 3 pm on Friday. Leigh and Kendall had arrived earlier and their job was to take Morgan and Jake off to do graduation pictures so that Alex and Jennifer Anderson could get the house ready for the surprise party. But there was another surprise that only a few in the know suspected. During the graduation pictures, Jake asked Morgan to marry him!

We first met Jake when he and Morgan were around 15 years old. It was near Morgan’s birthday and Bob and I had been fortunate to access a box at Old Dominion University Chartway Arena to see Imagine Dragons for an awesome 15th birthday party. Morgan had just started to date Jake and he was among the friends she had invited to her party. He seemed like a really nice young man that first night, and over the next several years, we watched as Morgan and Jake became best friends. They really get each other and Jake became not only important to Morgan, but important to our whole family. And, as a bonus, Jake’s younger brother, Tanner, became Truman’s best friend as well. And the more we got to know the Anderson’s, the more they all became close to all of us. So, while it was really no surprise that Jake and Morgan were deciding to spend their futures together, we were all very happy to be able to formally bond our family with the Anderson’s.

The party that evening was really a blast. Lots of graduating students from Radford, the Anderson’s, and our whole family, meant that the music spanned generations. There was dancing, singing, a spectacular thunder and lightning storm, lots of food, a cake that Alex and Leigh had conspired on to have a great picture of Jake and Morgan on the Radford campus, plenty of games, and everyone had a great time.

Next day was the graduation itself. The weather seemed to be very uncooperative, and Radford really wanted to do the ceremony outside so that everyone could come. If they had to move it inside, every family could only have 5 tickets, and they knew from long experience that would be a problem. The forecast was for rain, but Radford insisted that it would hold off for the outside ceremony, so we fortified ourselves with raingear and headed to campus. And they clearly knew their weather. Despite the ominous clouds, the rain held off and all the proud young people and their families got to enjoy the ceremony. We headed back to Morgan and Jake’s place to a big lunch, more family time, and lots of hugs and kisses as everyone peeled off as the day wore on. I took Jessica to the airport at Roanoke (where we had reinstated the return tickets that American (we don’t give a crap about you) Airlines had cancelled earlier that day), and thankfully this time her flights went off without incident. Bob, Truman and I drove back to Norfolk, tired but happy.

We have just a few days now to pack for our next trip, which will be a full month land tour of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Truman is going to spend the first week with Catie and her family, and then take charge of the home front until we return. Our challenges will include keeping our packing for a month under 50 lbs and in one suitcase, and trying not to forget anything important. Wish us luck!