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Thanksgiving Comes with Baggage
Act I: Two days before this Thanksgiving past.
The woman standing alone beside the luggage carousel at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport catches my eye. She is dressed nattily, formally, the way people used to dress when they flew on jetliners half a century ago.
Specifically, she is wearing a lovely black-brown-and-gold printed scarf, double-breasted black overcoat, charcoal fedora. Close-cropped gray curls peek out below the hat; a smile peeks from her Maybelline-red lips. Her eyes are chocolate and grandmotherly.
Alice’s smile brightened my Thanksgiving.
She reminds me, instantly, of my mom – in appearance, in proud posture, and in age were Mom alive today. And so, two days before my 24th Thanksgiving without my mom, I do what she taught me to do: help others.
The woman has a luggage cart so I assume she might welcome a helping hand. I offer and she accepts, beaming.
As we wait at the suitcase merry-go-round, she describes her bag as “kind of a leopard print, but not really.” It proves to be a perfectly apt description because as soon as I see the black-and-burnt-orange suitcase with a geometric design rather than spots, I correctly guess it is hers.
Loading it onto her luggage cart is small favor, yet she thanks me with a big hug. Then we go our separate ways into the Big Easy.
But this is not the end of the story.
***
Act II: Thanksgiving Evening.
During dinner at The Italian Barrel in the French Quarter, the first Thanksgiving meal of my life in a restaurant, we go around the table giving reasons why we are thankful.
After my wife, son, daughter and son-in-law share, I take my turn. I conclude my gratitude list by telling them about the graceful stranger I met at the airport baggage claim; her smile that warmed me; her hug that made me smile.
Again, this is not the end of the story.
***
Act III: Two days after Thanksgiving.
My wife and I are 30,000 feet in the sky headed home to Ventura.
It is a long flight, and I am 6-foot-4, so despite having an aisle seat I get up to stretch my legs. I walk to the back of the plane to stand for a while.
My back is turned when a voice says, “Hello.” I turn and, surprise of surprises, it is the woman in the charcoal fedora.
“I saw you walk down the aisle and I couldn’t believe it,” she says, again dressed elegantly as if for church. “I just had to come say thank you again. I told my family all about you at Thanksgiving dinner.”
Alice – we introduce ourselves properly this time – gives me another hug and then returns to her seat, but not before I promise to help her at the baggage carousel after we land.
We rendezvous as planned and as we visit I am in no hurry for the heavy “kind of a leopard print, but not really” suitcase to materialize.
I learn that Alice grew up in McComb, Mississippi, with 10 siblings, but –
widowed young – has no children of her own.
I learn that she has lived in Los Angeles for 34 years and has been retired for 19 years after a career with the Community Redevelopment Agency.
And I learn that Alice enjoyed fried turkey, seafood casserole, and all the trimmings for Thanksgiving dinner.
As we wait for her suitcase, Alice says I remind her of a quote: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
I tell her that was one of Coach John Wooden’s favorite maxims and serendipity knocks once more: Alice met Wooden, two decades ago, and afterward wrote his “7-Point Creed” in her Bible.
I carry a copy of his “7-Point Creed” in my wallet, and smile because one of its points is why Alice and I met: “Help others.”
Another point is: “Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.” Apropos, Alice invites me to join her some day at her church, Trinity Baptist.
I will be thankful to do so.
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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.
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