Just getting to Los Angeles was a story and a lot of fun until the Dept of Homeland Security got their hands on me.
Thank you Sue for running me down to the airport and thanks to everyone for their amazing hospitality while in NZ.
I had the most fun I’ve ever had on a flight, when a really nice mix of 3 guys got together and rapped. Rob from Chicago was in the aisle seat opposite and he had been out visiting his girlfriend. Turned out he had also lost his wife to cancer only 2years ago and we were both going through the same readjustments to life in our early sixties. I happened to mention surfing and a young guy’s ears twitched in front of Rob and then we had Kevin join us in the conversation. Kevin is from up near San Francisco and surfs a lot of those big waves in that area. The service was fabulous on the leg to Fiji and we had plenty of free drinks and the stories and laughter flew back and forth. You have to know that Rob is 62 and so was I (well almost!) and Kevin is 26 and is a non catholic. Both Rob and I are catholic and had done 9 first Fridays at mass when we were young which got us a Plenary Indulgence. This gives you a free pass into heaven no matter how bad a life you lead and what a good deal. That offer has expired so don’t go signing up haha! Anyway the bottom line was that we gave poor Kevin the title of “that dyslexic non catholic without a plenary indulgence”
The banter and drinking continued during the stopover and then the first indication of the increased security on inbound flights to the US when all passengers were body searched before boarding. The 3 of us managed to get seats together but it was getting late so we quietened down and Rob gave us a sleeping pill for now and a ‘stayhard’ for later haha! Kevin shouldn’t need one of those but took it anyway. What a fun trip up to now right?
When I went through immigration I was led away to the Reassessment Section and you don’t want to go there as your passport goes into a little slot on the wall and then never seems to move. The fact that you have people waiting seems to make no difference at all and my offence was that I didn’t know my address in LA and didn’t have an outward ticket. Even the fact that the State Dept has issued you with a Visa cuts no mustard. So it ended up delaying me by 2 hours and poor Herbert and Joan never got the call the airline rep was going to make. But hey I was finally back in America
