Oh My, It has been such a long time

Wow, a whole summer has gone by and I have not blogged. Terrible. But it's late at night, my mind has been fomenting ideas and I am back. Not that my blog has been missed by anyone, but since I write for myself, that is ok.
I want to talk about air travel. No, I'm not going to complain about overbooked planes, canceled flights, or rude attendants. I am going to heap praise upon an airline. Ready?
A couple of weeks ago I flew Southwest for the first time. I had to drive for a bit over an hour and a half to get the the airport SW flies from, but I have now decided it is worth the drive. First, I had a direct flight to Las Vegas (on my way to Utah to hike with friends). Second, it cost less than any flight I could get closer to home. Third, I didn't have to pay to check a bag. Fourth, and pay attention, I had no seat number assigned to me. I asked the attendant at the counter about that and she informed me that SW has no seat assignments. You have a letter - A, B, C, etc. on your ticket and you line up alphabetically according to signs at the gate. Within your letter group, you line up according to your number range that appears on your ticket: 1 - 15, 16 -30, etc. How novel. It took a while for some of us to figure this out and as I had an A classification I got onto the plane very soon and calmly chose one of the many available aisle seats.
Now here is where SW shines. THERE IS NO FIRST CLASS! I love this - how egalitarian and sensible. I like being equal to everyone else. Well, I like not being unequal to those in first class is probably more accurate.
So, did it take longer to load the plane with no seat assignments? It did not. It took very little time, amazingly little time. This was partly due to the fact that few people were trying to stuff large bags into small overhead compartments. Most passengers had checked their bags - for free, remember, so the overhead bins were virtually empty. This made deplanning easy also - hardly anyone had to yank a bag out of the overhead bin. Getting off was just as uncomplicated as getting on the plane.
What an enlightened company. Oh yes, the attendants wore blue polo shirts and kakhi shorts! Yes, shorts - men and women. How about the pilots? I checked - they were not wearing shorts which I found reassuring. I suppose it makes them look more serious. I doubt I'd want some youngster in Bermuda shorts flying my plane - well, once I did. But that was a 5-seater in the wilds of Utah - another story.
A great flying experience. We even had our choice of snacks and a nice menu to choose from for free drinks. A plus were the funny (really) announcements by the chief attendant when explaining seat belt use, the putting-on of life vests and other information a regular traveler doesn't listen to much. Lest you think the trip out had a unique staff, the return flight was just as good. The jokes were different, but the atmosphere was the same. Relaxed.
I am amazed that I feel so positive about Southwest that I will drive the extra time to take one of their flights and that I will write about it in my blog. But there it is - an enjoyable travel experience. Thank you Southwest. May you live long and prosper.

Even though my blog is light-hearted tonight, I chose two poems that have to do with war and flying. We cannot forget the past.

The War in the Air

For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead, Who rarely bothered coming
home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.

Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales Of hitting the earth,
the incompressible sea, But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mind,

Who had no graves but only epitaphs
Where never so many spoke for never so few: 'Per ardua,' said the
partisans of Mars,
'Per aspera,' to the stars.

That was the good war, the war we won
As if there were no death, for goodness' sake, With the help of the
losers we left out there In the air, in the empty air.

— Howard Nemerov

Losses

In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school —
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said , 'Our casualties were low.'

— Randall Jarrell, 1963.