Whether the Weather

Whether the weather be cold

Or whether the weather be hot

We’ll weather the weather whatever the weather

Whether we like it or not.

The perfect poem for my flight to Savannah yesterday! I was walking out the door to drive to the airport when the phone rang. It was the warm, concerned voice of the automated United robot telling me my flight to Savannah from Washington DC had been cancelled. I called immediately to get that obnoxious jovial recording and decided to just get to the airport and take my chances.

The first person I talked to was not encouraging. “Yes, the flight to Savannah is cancelled and in fact, all our flights to Savannah are cancelled because of an ice storm.” “That’s fine, but lets talk about how you’re going to get me there.” I was picturing flights to nearby places with all-night bus trips. After all, I had six workshops to give at a major state convention plus a talk. “Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor ice storms shall stop the Orff teacher from fulfilling his appointed rounds” my professional credo. Many back and forths later, they got me on a flight on American Airlines. Apparently, the Savannah airport is closed to United, but not to American. Huh? It would get me in 3 hours later that my original flight and of course, there’s a chance that I’d be stranded in Dallas. Or at the Savannah Airport, as apparently the bridges were closed to get into Savannah.

So it was a somewhat tense exciting time for me, a very boring travel story for you. I did make all connections, got a cab to the hotel and 12 hours later, arrived at my hotel room to prepare for a day of workshops. The three most interesting parts of the trip so far?

1. Somehow I got a pre-board status on American and didn’t have to take off my shoes or jacket to go through security. Just walked through. How exactly does that work?

2. I saw the movie The Runner on the plane, which after American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street drives home the point that all young men want to do is make heaps of money, be surrounded by sexy girls and eventually get caught by the law. Who are these people? Not the crowd I ever hung out with.

3. After my workshop tonight, a security guard who had been peeking in the door came up to me and said, “I don’t understand anything about music, but if you had been my teacher, I would.”  I invited him to take part in the workshop tomorrow if he had time off. He shook my hand, visibly moved.

And so was I. For a moment like that, I would weather any weather and fly 12-hours without a moment’s hesitation.