This story involves work colleagues, airplanes, a white
Cadillac, 1980s music, and a wide-open Minnesota highway. You know, another
typical road story. Most names have been withheld out of courtesy.
I do not travel much for my work. There are and have been
times though when I have had to travel. Most often this is by car to some
central location for a meeting, or on occasion, for some extended event. A few
times the traveling took me out of state to other places.
Our journey had been uneventful enough by the time we landed in Minneapolis. We had a layover, so we had to wait for a time. While we were waiting we noticed we knew some other people who would be boarding the plane to Duluth with us. These were folks who worked in other locations across Tennessee but performed work duties similar to what me and my colleague did where they lived. We knew them from meetings and phone calls over the previous couple of years. This was a good thing as we understood while we were all staying a few days in Minnesota we already knew some people who would also be there.
Then the first delay came. A thunderstorm blew through. I remember looking out a large plate glass window into the horizon while dark clouds descended, and lightning shot to the ground. Flights were grounded. We began to grow antsy wanting to get to our destination. Finally, the storm relented and we knew then it was only a matter of time before we would soon be on our way. After all, they let us board the plane. Except, we then waited and waited…and waited. We were then told that after the storm passed, the plane was inspected again before it could be cleared for takeoff. In this inspection, the plane was discovered to have a flat tire. Then it became worse.
We were then told our flight would not be taking off at all. It was late Sunday afternoon. The Duluth airport, although an international airport, had closed for the day. We missed our window to land there. The company who was hosting our meetings scrambled before agreeing to charter busses from Minneapolis to Duluth.
And this is the point where a plan for a road trip through Minnesota began to come together. One of our colleagues from Memphis located me and my Chattanooga colleague then spotted two others from Nashville. Our Memphis friend asked us if we would be willing to ride to Duluth if she rented a car big enough for all of us. The thoughts of a multi-hour ride on a bus were suddenly dashed with the hopes of us getting to our destination on our own terms. We all agreed. Our Memphis friend told us to grab our luggage then to meet her at a certain spot. She would rent a car then meet us there. Fearing others might have the same idea, our Memphis colleague, who only brought a carry-on bag, took off to where the rental car companies were located while we waited for our luggage to appear.
In time, the four of us retrieved our bags. We then made our way to meet our Memphis friend hoping and praying she was able to locate a large enough car for the five of us. As we walked to our meeting place, three of us noticed that one of our Nashville colleagues was busy talking to a college age woman who was following each step we all made. These two had apparently talked on the plane then continued their conversation through all the chaos that followed. Then, just as if it were planned for a movie, as soon as we arrived at our meeting place, our Memphis colleague came barreling around a corner in a big, white Cadillac. She popped open the trunk while we began shoving our luggage into the trunk of the car.
Our Nashville colleague noted that the young lady she was talking to was from Duluth. Her name was Jenny. She had attended a political rally in Washington, DC that weekend and was now trying to get home. She had made no plans how to get there if something happened to the plane or if the airport you need to get to has to close so everybody can go home. You know, like any of that would ever happen.
The five of us, not a one of us under forty years of age, looked at each other. We then asked Jenny if she needed a ride to Duluth. Of course, she did. We then somehow crammed her luggage into the Cadillac. I think one of us may have even jumped into the air to do a butt bounce on the trunk lid to make it close before we roared off into the evening.
We ripped out of Minneapolis headed north. I always like to know the route we are going but on this trip I did not care. Our Memphis friend, one Nashville friend and Jenny took the front seat while my Chattanooga colleague and the other Nashville colleague took the backseat. I was just glad to be moving in any direction and could only hope it was the right one.
The rainy weather cleared soon enough. I do remember the skies clearing enough so that we all enjoyed a nice sunset on the ride. We stopped to grab a sandwich and take a bathroom break along the way. Soon enough, we were back on the road again.
This trip consisted of a good deal of shop talk among the five of us who shared similar career paths. We talked about the upcoming week and plans we had when we returned to our home offices. No doubt Jenny was bewildered by our conversation lost in the language of work-speak.
Our front seat Nashville friend made an effort to find a radio station that played 1980s music. After all, five of us had lived through that decade and appreciated the music from then. As we listened to tune after tune of old familiar songs, we laughed along, sang along and shared memories of some of the songs we heard. I am not sure poor Jenny had heard any of the songs we knew so well.
We soon were in Duluth. We discovered some of us were in one hotel and the rest of us were in another hotel. And then there was Jenny. While our Memphis colleague left some of us at our hotel, she had to ask Jenny where she needed to go. It almost seemed like she did not want to go to her home. It was almost like she wanted to keep hanging out with us, you know the cool older people who knew every 1980s song ever heard and spoke in technical terms about the work they did. Maybe this one road trip had altered her life course. Those of us who were fortunate enough to find where we were staying learned soon enough that our new friend Jenny made it safely home despite her seeming reluctance to leave a group of strangers she shared two hours with in a long, white Cadillac.
This road trip was over. I though had one last trick up my sleeve. The next day, I took a small piece of paper, wrote on it then put it in my pocket. I then located our Nashville colleague who first befriended Jenny. We talked about the craziness of the trip. We talked about the randomness of meeting a total stranger who had no qualms about getting into a car with folks she did not know. We laughed about how we probably tortured Jenny with our insistence on listening to 1980s music during the entire trip.
Then I mentioned as I was walking into the room, someone handed me a message and asked me to deliver that message to her. I then added I was told it was from our friend, Jenny. It seems Jenny needed our Nashville colleague to call her. This brought a smile to her face. I then handed the paper over to her. She unfolded it then read it aloud, “Jenny, 867-5309.” We then both burst into laughter. The laughs the five of us shared over this road trip through the years still make me smile today.
“You can have Bemidji, and the rusty, dusty range, and Babbit and Aurora all the way to Coleraine, and you can have those cities: Minneapolis and St. Paul, ‘cause to tell you the truth, I like it in Duluth.”
-The Moose Wallow Ramblers
Road Trip: The Middle of Minnesota playlist:
Lenny Kravitz "Fly Away"
Husker Du "Private Plane"
Plain White T's "Airplane"
The Kinks "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman"
Prince "Rock n Roll Is Alive (And It's Living in Minneapolis)"
Sonny Curtis "Love Is All Around"
Dwight Yoakam "Long White Cadillac"
Moors & Macumber "Welcome To Duluth"
Trampled By Turtles "Duluth"
The Moose Wallow Ramblers "I Like It In Duluth"
Bob Dylan "Jokerman"
Tommy Tutone "Jenny/867-5309"
