Travelling

My Life 4.3 Travelling

There were two flights out of Heathrow for Japan. One was BA, the other
JAL. Although the seats were a little more cramped on the JAL flight, I
usually chose it. This was because, as soon as I got on board, I felt I
was in Japan - the attendants, the food.

I guess a more interesting flight was from Dallas to Tokyo. I usually
took Thai air. All the attendants had unpronounceable names and looked
gorgeous till you got up close. But the aircraft was very elegant, and
club class spacious. Dallas was fun! I used to go there a lot. Gunning
the big car down the six lane highway out of central Dallas, with
country music playing on the radio as the sun went down, was heaven!
The CEO of the company we were dealing with, Pete, with had a
six-seater plane. He was always trying to log air miles, so at 10
o'clock at night he'd suggest "why don't we go over to Fort Worth?"
Fort Worth was the other half of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and
it wasn't too hard to drive, but no - we had to fly!

Another time we went down to 'San Antone'. Tex-mex by the river, and
the Alamo! The trip I liked the most was when we went to Pete's wife's
family's ranch, close to the border. It was great! We picked up another
guy who came in from Japan on the Thai flight. As we landed at
Dallas-Fort Worth, they held a Jumbo up so we could cross the taxiway.
Ever looked up from a six-seater plane at a Jumbo? We parked, and a
minibus picked us up. We went off to meet Tony's plane, and came back.
The parking fee and the minibus ride came to about $11. When we touched
down at the small town airstrip, we tied the wings down and jumped into
the pickup that had been left for us with the keys in. First we went to
the Dairy Queen for a coffee and snack. The two girls behind the
counter burst into giggles every time Tony or I spoke - it was the
English accent! Next - to the store. "Wanna do some shooting?" Pete
invited. We agreed, so we shovelled some packs of shotgun cartridges
and some 9mm ammunition off the open shelves. A boy in a green apron
carried our brown paper bags and deposited them in the back of the
pickup.

The ranch house was on top of cliffs overlooking a whole area of flat
land, with a river down below. Along the top of the cliffs were old
Indian encampments, if you scraped around in the soil, there were
arrowheads galore. We had a deck that cantilevered out over the drop,
from which Pete lobbed clay pigeons while we shot at them. The ranch
had some three-wheeled trail bikes we could ride around on. I had a
pistol slung round my waist, taking potshots at rabbits and snakes. The
cardinal rule was always point the gun down. Whereas we could pop off
shotguns to our hearts content, a bullet could travel quite a distance.
If it hit one of the cattle, you were in big trouble!

We got down to the river on a winding rock path. The river had a rock
shelf in, where the water was about four inches deep. You could lie in
the river to cool off - it was hot!

The 9mm ammunition was for the Uzzi. We had to fire that in the range
so the bullets ended up in the earth bank. Once was enough - the
bullets tore the target in two!

On the flight back from the ranch, we stopped to refuel at a small
airstrip. Have you seen those American road films? There were two old
guys in blue overalls, check shirts, long peaked baseball caps and big
bushy beards. They were sitting on an old sofa on a veranda outside the
wooden shack with the big store window in front. A sign swung rustily
above the door. Spookily familiar!

My Company sent me on business to Las Vegas - twice! But for a few
years I visited Japan two or three times a year for three weeks at a
time. It was the best!

Leaving Tokyo once, I had the strangest 'pre- vu'. I went down to the
air terminal and checked in. On the airport bus, it was dark and rainy,
I dropped off to sleep. I woke up, genuinely thinking for a moment I
was in the taxi approaching my home. Then I suddenly realised that I
had a 16-hour flight (and more) ahead of me! That was a bad
moment.

I last went to Japan in 1987. I had a new job, but had agreed to keep
doing the buying job as well until they found someone else. When they
eventually did, a year later, I took the new guy on the tour,
introducing him to my contacts, explaining I was moving on. I had some
nice farewells and nice times with old pals, and the new guy got on
with them well. So that side was good.

But I do miss Japan. And I never got to go back so far. I've got enough
air miles for two of us to go to Japan, but my wife prefers
Australia!