"You'll never make it."
We were sitting on a taxiway at O'Hare. The guy next to me was a chatty hedge fund manager. Started talking the minute he sat down. In no time at all I had the ear buds in and pulled out my book.
But that was an hour ago in Traverse City. Now, knowing that my connecting flight home was boarding and I needed to hustle from the far end of the F terminal to the far end of the C terminal, I was in go mode: backpack on my lap, one foot in the aisle to get a running start, seatbelt already unbuckled. Knowing I needed to move quickly, those earbuds were back in their white plastic case.
"That's a really long way," he said again, content in the knowledge he lived in Chicago and had no flight to catch.
"I'll make it," I told him.
It had not been that kind of weekend. In fact, it was the opposite, a time of content and catching up with my old buddies from Northern Michigan University. We meet every two years in Marquette for what can only be described as reminiscing. We drive around Presque Isle, eat at Vango's, pay homage to the Third Base Bar, and generally talk about the old times while drinking perhaps too much beer.
I flew into Traverse City, picked up a car, and stopped in Petoskey to pick up my old friend Matt Laforet. It was cold, wet, and windy when we got to Marquette, which is as I like it. I can get all the sunshine and 90 degree days I need in California.
There were seven of us who made the trip. We've all done pretty well, which would have surprised our twenty-year-old selves, who knew nothing of the future and considered ourselves royal fuck-ups compared to the ambitioous pre-med types. There have been heart attacks, cancer, thicker middles, and a noted loss of hair. Half the guys are sober. It used to be that when we went to the bar we weren't back until it closed, and then we'd bring supplies back to the dorm to keep the party going until dawn. This time, I was back in my room by nine, reading a book on the balcony happily buffeted by the winds off of Lake Superior.
Of course, it wasn't all monastic living. We still managed to find a small bar called The Breakers to watch college football and shoot pool. At some point I realized I love these guys. We know each other like brothers and had more than our share of differences back in the day. We still laugh at the same forty-year-old jokes. Still bust each other's balls over our personal quirks and nuances. My habit of doing the Irish Exit to wander off and do my own thing was duly noted, but accepted as part of who I am. I like solitude. These guys know it. It's nice to be understood.
With the exception of an amusing tour group who piled off their bus wearing plaid in honor of "plaiderday" (I think that's what it's called), nothing was out of the normal this weekend. When we said our goodbyes at the Hampton Inn over coffee Sunday morning, there was talk of not doing the trips anymore, or maybe meeting in someplace easier to access. But we decided that we'd be ready for one another again in two years and that no place works for us but Marquette.
Matt and I drove over the Mackinac Bridge and I dropped him off. I literally parked in the Traverse CIty airport parking lot as the early flight I'd hoped to catch pulled back from the gate. That left me with five hours to kill and that tight connection in Chicago. I didn't mind a bit. It was nice to have down time in a strange place with nothing to do.
I made the flight in Chicago. Barely. They were just about to close the door.
"Are you Martin?" asked the gate agent.
"That's me."
"Here's your new boarding pass. You got the upgrade to first."
A fitting end to a perfect weekend.