Ok, my Mum’s arguably senile. But reflexively, I trusted her, y’know, after twenty years of ‘Eat yer vegetables, son!’
The ‘iffy’ DeHavilland Twin Otter turbo-prop we dutifully boarded for our ‘Florida Getaway to Sarasota’ did look a bit small for a trip of that import, but I followed her to our seats like an obedient lemming.
Excited about the trip (I’d brought along my favorite shorts, a gift from Beth Seedsower of Xanga fame), I only started to feel mildly puzzled, like any self-respecting lemming, when it dawned om me that the late-afternoon Sun was shining through the cabin windows from the left(!) Headed south, it shoulda been from the right; i.e. the West!
Above the low-level clouds I had no ground reference, but at least I wasn’t kept in suspense for too long. We landed, bumpily, taxied to the terminal and, as I scanned the scene for palm trees to no great avail, it all became clear.
No, not ‘pilot-error’… ‘Mommy-error’. I should have asked how she managed a $59 round-trip flight to Sarasota.
Ha, easy; click instead on ‘Saratoga’!
Here’s the Terminal.
No aligators, coral beaches, bikini girls, In fact, no sign at all. Done on purpose, I’m guessing, to delay the let-down.
Now don’t think I haven’t a soft spot for Saratoga Springs, NY. In my youth I went through a series of deep and formative romances with Skidmore Girls. They are by now all grown up, still gorgeous and outrageously smart, and probably hammering that ‘glass ceiling’ as well as any woman can. Liz Reston, ‘niece-of’ a NYT writer I wish I was the equal of comes especially to mind.
But they weren’t waiting for me at the airport though. Just me, and my Mom, who’d been scratching and itching herself since we got to cruise altitude (probably from the cheap ‘non-genuine-Naugahyde seats’ in the Otter. The fever and chills only started the first night.
After I’d decided, assessing all my powers of restraint, not to mention, or , even to hint, that we ‘weren’t in Florida anymore, Mamma‘.
Sadly, I still have no idea where she thought she was headed; we did our best to enjoy the crisp fall weather, walked a full 100 meters of a nature trail near the hotel, and, while she rested, I got to wistfully pass by the old ‘Annendale Road’ off-campus Housing-for-theAlluring’ I remembered well. Jeez, girls these days look so ‘little’, so ‘young’. Mebbe it wuz the LSD back then?
Anyway, to finish here, we’re both now back home, safe, happy, and blissfully confused.
I decided to post this, as a ‘Memo’. A ‘Warning’?
Note-to Me: I’ve driven PA to Sarasota (FLA!) and back a half-dozen times. Twenty-three hours, including two(2) rest stops to piss. Next time I’ll be sure to take my Ma along. Maybe drugged, in the trunk. Unlock and say “Surprise, Verna! And welcome to New Jersey! Hot out, ain’t it?”
Oh, and here’s ‘Julie-the Kiwi-leeks’s hacked version of the story; sucks to be you, kid.
HOW WE DO ‘GULF’? AH, ‘SARATOGA'(?!) MEMO:’ HOW-TO’: ‘TWO HOME, MA GOT A RASH, A FLU. GOD! EWW! OH.
jxsolberg 
The war on drugs worked really well. It still surprises me when anyone who took any kinda drug managed to grow up and/or be anything other than a vegetable. That is neither here nor there. I haven’t had any coffee today. Also, I pulled my back out stuffing a bird to show my thanks to the indigenous people who being shot at.
Where was my actual comment?
Ultimately, this story can be laid at the feet of those same individuals. Those names are too close together. I’d take the wrong plane too.
Ha, you help me in ways you’ll never know, to understand life.
As for T-giving, here I can’t afford even a pigeon; must have been a ‘killer’ bird to hurt your back; hungry just thinking about it.
The story: a typical Solberg play-on-words, of course. Fiction. Let’s hope. (A friend of mine here just this last week discovered, waiting for boarding, that ‘San Jose’ is not ‘San Juan'(!)
Oh, as to substances, I do feel lucky as all get-out: I escaped completely un-harmed, and wouldn’t ‘un-do’ a single ‘trip’ I recall. Oops, mebbe that’s the problem.?
My R-L mother has been resting in peace for ten years at least.
Hope your back fixes itself before the next cooking-op/JS
Admittedly, it wasn’t the bird that broke me. It was the bag of junk for Good Will. I just thought the bird sounded more fun. I’m learning about embellishment.
I recognized fiction. And the palindrome too, of course.
In the category of who the heck cares place name confusion, I still can’t tell which direction to go for Lewistown and Lewisburg. (in good ole PA)
You’re right about your first statement. I’m choosing to accept it at face value.
I’m willing to bet the barn still contains the British Army captured in 1777.
You ‘long-memory’ folks are what shall save civilization… if possible at all. Try to find 2 Americans in a batch of a thousand who ever heard of Burgoyne. (And yes, the barn houses his left boot, which after all these years is still too odorous to display in the Museum.
’77 was the first US Thanksgiving, after and partly due to the surrender. Oh, and count on the Froggies to watch from the sidelines and join the ‘winning side’ only after they weren’t desperately needed.
As usual, in our Yankee-to-Limey meet-ups, I muse on, had we been in a ‘net forum those days, what we would have thoughts about the Revolt, the Tea Party-ppl… I guess it was bound to happen; King George and all that rot.
Oh, I mentioned you just now to a client, after he told me he’s from Newcastle-on Tyne(?) Among other subjects, I offered to deliver (somehow) a bucket of fine-quality but sadly un-needed coals I happen to have here stored in an out-building. And as you likely would have replied, he dryly replied that they’ll probably get by without them, but thanks for the thought.
Made my day; as do your comments.
Who’d have thought: a Geordie in the Jordan valley?
Convey my condolences that Clydeside was favoured over Tyneside for the recently-commissioned frigates.
Indeed I dutifully conveyed your regards, accepted in good spirit. Once i finish his frightfully-expanding job, I’ll have time to sit and share a cup of coffee, and quiz him on the ‘Geordie’ dialect, of which he seems quite proud.
Meanwhile, the ‘Newcastle -upon-Tyne Wiki article was a fact-filled hour of catch-up. ‘FCL’ (feigning cultural literacy), yep, dat’s my temporary goal in life. BTW, he corrected my pronunciation of ‘Hertfordshire’ to “Hartford shire”. Should I acquiesce?
Yes, it’s pronounced HART-ford- shear, where only the first syllable is stressed. Thus, the un-stressed ‘shear’ can be neutralised somewhat to sound like ‘sure’ rather than ‘shear’ (as with all the shires).
I can never remember whether it’s named after a stag crossing a river, or getting hit by a Model T.
Quite the odyssey (and you, the modern-day Odysseus) to get that palindrome working. Maybe your mom was really Penelope, spinning (and unravelling) that tale out of bargain cloth. Well done, my friend!
.Like you, I may never know *everything* about my mom, (of blessed memory).
There’s a sense in which I can now put any words I choose into her (and my equally dear and departed Father’s, mouths. Having not heard from Houdini from the afterlife as yet, I assume that anything I type here, in the galactic big-picture, is kinda less-than zero fateful.
Thanks for enjoying the story. This ‘WordsSpelled–Backwards’ trick I use nightly to avoid bed-time fears of Poverty, Pestilence, and Prison has had an unexpected side-effect value. Inspiration uber alles. I wait in line behind tons of other writers, musicians, and painters similarly ‘blessed’. And hoping not to cut off my ear, y’know
Bravo, and hooray for properly harmless recreational drugs, too!
Lysergic whatevah wuz mentioned here only in passing. I’d like to assume that my times with ‘Liz’, for example, were powerful because of our having been ‘created’, and not some ‘noise-spike’ (artifact) of “Re-creation”) in all its senses.
I’ll never know who I’d be these days without having jammed-open the ‘Doors of Perception’.
But lately, the smart money for me is on maximizing my grip on mundane ‘reality’, as defined by the larger society.
There’s a bed waiting here, just ten miles up the road, for moi i (Ironically named ‘Paradiseya’) if I should ever finally ‘lose-it’. I work 24/7 to keep it empty.
Glad you liked the silly story, meanwhile; I’ve got more…. pending involuntary committal.
I admit I didn’t see the palindrome lurking until it bit me in the face.
Palindrome abomination? No, it an imoba emo R&D nil ap.
Thanks for the comment: I do try to keep the letter-play aspect in the background, like ‘ladies-in-waiting.’ , in my stories.
Your ‘abomination’ hat-in-the-ring’ has the usual mix of ‘god-sent’ and ‘oy!’
Perfect OMG palindromes are predictably rare; an artifact of English spelling conventions.
I’m remembering your chess prowess right now, and musing on fictional ‘coulda-been’ killer strategies, if only a Knight hopped one forward and then*three* sideways …
At any rate, the brain cells you and I are working 24/7 to hang onto; that’s the issue.
I was , predictably. hurt and insulted by your strange reply to my recent comment on your site. Perhaps re-read what I wrote, from the heart,and re-think.
It’d be a shame to ‘un-follow’ someone over nothing. Especially in these perilous times/ JS
My linguistic forensic skills are failing me. For the life of me I can’t imagine what would trigger this particular creation. My best guess is it began with Saratoga and grew in both directions a painful syllable at a time.
The title, however, is memorable.