I am easily alarmed. When my flight was about to take off from Portland, Oregon this afternoon for the MREA Energy Fair in Custer, Wisconsin, I noticed that the two young Arab-looking men sitting beside me were reading what appeared to be little prayer books with Arabic characters on the pages. I hoped they were doing it because they were religious, and not because they were engaged in a ritual that prepared them for Paradise.

Then the pilot announced over the intercom that if passengers looked to the right of the plane, we could watch an F15 fighter jet from the Oregon Air Guard take off. We were next in line after the after the F15, he said. It was indeed a spectacular sight with the jet’s two exhausts glowing balls of fire.

Then our pilot revved up our plane’s engines and started down the runway, only to have the engines rev down and a stewardess announce that our takeoff had been cancelled and we would taxi off the runway and get back in line. We did so quickly, and suddenly four more F15s took off, one after the other, like they were in a big hurry.

The pilot announced our takeoff had been aborted to make way for a “live military scramble.” The Arab men, meanwhile, had put away their little books and began praying, a ritualistic type praying with occasional nods of their heads.

Our Boeing 757 then turned onto the tarmac and gave its mighty roar as it headed down the runway, giving me my usual rush of adrenaline with the accompanying G forces pushing my body into my seat.

As we ascended, the Arab men began what appeared to be a ritualistic cleansing of their body with their hands, sweeping their palms over their arms and legs several times while uttering incantations that gave me the heebie jeebies.

I pulled by Pentel .9 mm P209 mechanical pencil from my shirt pocket. I always carried it. And mentally I prepared myself for any eventuality. My Pentel was 5 1/2 inches long, stiff like a knife and tapered at the business end to a metal point. It was a good self-defense weapon in the absence of anything else, and I was not going to allow myself to be taken by surprise.

Then suddenly the plane began to shake. The pilot announced that flight attendants should strap themselves into their jump seats. He told passengers that the wind had changed from 60 miles per hour to a hundred as we headed up, but that it should settle down once we entered the jet stream. That’s all I needed — a shaky plane on top of my worries about the guys sitting to my left.

In a few minutes the plane did settle down, and first one of the Arabs, then the other, fell asleep. But I watched them for the next 2 1/2 hours, until we landed in Denver, the interim stop on the way to Madison, Wisconsin. I even relaxed enough to try and use my laptop computer, but the seat was so cramped I could barely open it after putting it onto the fold-down tray on the seat to my front.

The descent to Denver was one of those stomach-in-your-throat affairs through low clouds and wind. It even got the sleepy Arabs’ attention as the plane lurched this way and that and made several abrupt drops. But we landed safely, and the Arabs went their way, and Annie and I are now waiting for a connector flight to Madison.

This will be my last Energy Fair. As you can see, I don’t travel well. Annie will do the show next year, while I stay home and fish in the Pacific. Rock fish and ling cod don’t cause as much stress as young Arab guys minding their own business.

If you’d like to come to the Fair to say hello, please do. I won’t be coming back this way again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Publishing BHM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.