On my way to the March for Life
...a few funny things happened!
"Getting there is half the fun, come share it with me" —Kermit and Fozzie Bear, The Muppet Movie
I am currently winding my way north towards Washington DC on the "Silver Meteor," an Amtrak train that runs from Miami to New York. I hadn’t expected to travel in this manner, but recall again what is often said regarding the best laid machinations of vermin and dudebros.
Over the course of the past two days, Winter Storm Enzo completed its ravishment of the Deep South, coating such unlikely places as Coastal Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle with several inches of snow and ice. Last night, that mischievous madlad Enzo lashed into the Atlantic coast as well, including my hometown of Savannah, a city that sees snow perhaps once a decade. When I arose, the lawn and roads were caked with that magical powder, which causes those who rarely see it to lose their minds with joy.
My mind, however, was elsewhere. I wondered furtively if my flight to DC, enabling me to attend the March for Life, would be in jeopardy of getting cancelled. However, my mind was set at ease when, 24 hours prior to scheduled takeoff, I received what I took to be notification that all systems were go: I was invited to check in online. I filled out the necessary forms, and was duly forwarded my boarding pass. All seemed well.
Then there was talk of how the roads might refreeze in the night, and how that scary phenomenon known as “black ice” might bedevil my means of getting to the airport in the morning. It seemed wiser, if regrettably less cost-effective, to have a Lyft driver take me there in the afternoon. I would then stay the night in the cozy lobby of the local airport, hopefully grab a little sleep on a cozy little bench, then go through the boarding process in the morning.
Unfortunately, once I arrived at Savannah/Hilton Head airport, I could tell that something was amiss. All of the stores in the lobby were closed, the hallway leading to the terminal was boarded off, and every single flight scheduled for “arrival” and “departure” for the day was marked as “cancelled.” Presently a man approached me with a mournful face and an apologetic tone; he broke to me the news that the terminals would all be closed until 5 pm tomorrow… My flight had been scheduled for departure at 11 am, I told him… how long would it be delayed? There was no telling, the man informed me— 5 o’clock was when they were planning to “reconsider” how to proceed.
I was crestfallen. I had honestly thought that since the storm had come and gone, things would be back on track, but apparently not. The man asked where I was headed, and if there were possibly any other means of transport. I mumbled “DC,” somewhat forlornly, and he told me that an Amtrak train was leaving around 7 pm this evening which could take me there. I immediately called Amtrak— apparently, this was my only option, and ordering online wasn’t possible at so late a juncture) and wound up speaking with a woman who didn’t know English very well, but to her credit sounded like she wanted to be helpful.
I spelled out my name and my email address for her, having to make corrections several times, then gave my debit card number. I was told that I would get a call back from someone else, verifying my information. To my consternation, this didn’t happen, but I saw that the payment had gone through and figured that all was well.
The nice but sad-faced airport man then had me go downstairs, where I was to board a taxi which would take me to the Savannah Amtrak station. By now dusk was falling. I clambered abord the vehicle of my second paid driver of the night. The garrulous cabbie, a good-hearted but somewhat obstreperous black lady from New Jersey regaled me with stories of her other passengers that day, other people whom she had taken to Amtrak after their flight was canceled, including a woman upset at the prospect of missing her mother’s funeral in Virginia, and a few choice thoughts on Trump: “He’s like Pennywise the clown, but he’s sure got some cajones!” in addition to sharing her ambitions of starting a restaurant that combined two favorite cuisines: soul food and Italian.
On a different occasion, I would have enjoyed conversing with such a colorful character as her, but tonight my mind was still occupied: would I be able to secure the train ticket I had seemingly purchased online, after the crushing blow of finding out that my flight was in all likelihood canceled?
The Savannah Amtrak station is a lonely outpost on the outskirts of the outskirts of town, surrounded by woodsy foliage. The staff would not return to open the terminal until the top of the hour, so I waited outside with a few other desultory travelers, likely there for similar reasons as me: their original plans had been scotched by the snowstorm, and they had to opt for plan B: rail, rather than air.
Then, at 6:45, the power went out…
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Good grief, I thought moodily, what now? It turned out that a wider outage had hit that particular section of the outskirts of the outskirts of Savannah. When staff members arrived, we were told that the train was on its way, but it could not approach the station until the power was restored. In the meantime, we could do little but sit in the dark of the dreary little station terminal.
Now, I feared two things: my already-present anxiety that the ticket purchase I had made from the English-deficient agent on the phone wouldn’t show up on their records was now compounded by the thought that the power-fix could take hours, or longer.
There was no doubt about it: I was being tested. Was God throwing these roadblocks, one after another, in my way in order to get me to trust him further, to persevere in the midst of hardship? He knew how badly I wished to attend this March, an event I have never before witnessed in person. He knew well enough that no issue stirs me with passion like the duty to protect the unborn, the most innocent and vulnerable among us, from harm. Or, conversely, could he be opting to block this trip, for his own reasonable but inscrutable reasons? I wondered these things as I paced around the dark, powerless train station. (Truth be told, I am not a good sitter when I am ill at ease.)
The loss of power, now that I think of it, is the ultimate metaphor for the entirety of my experiences on this trying day, a day that now slips into the depths of late evening and early morning as my fellow passengers and I glide northwards towards our nation’s capital, at this particular juncture in history when that capital has been set all aflutter, filled with great hubbub and commotion, sound and fury: a time of yes, transition of power. But does any president or prince wield actual power? Ultimately, like the rest of us, they all must bow before he who steers not just the ship of state, but the course of history: of life, the universe, and everything.
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As the reader will guess, the power in the train station presently came back on, and the confusion over my ticket was resolved at the ticket window, enabling me to board this “Silver Meteor” in lieu of an operational airplane in lieu of clement weather. Yet even now, I find that I cannot yet chuckle at my ordeals, much as they may resemble some ridiculous “Planes Trains and Automobiles”-esque cinematic farce, minus the generous-hearted but annoying big-fat-guy companion.
Indeed, what troubles me is how gracelessly I have behaved today, even if only in my heart. There is, after all (to return to what has become the abiding metaphor of today’s adventures), a sense in which one is truly powerless, and some of us, myself included, have a pretty difficult time dealing with such situations.
When my mind is set on something, being delayed or waylaid can be positively infuriating. Yet our Creator wishes us to be able to wait when necessary, trusting in his will. “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Well, I can do the second part okay, but that stillness thing? Yeah, that just ain’t me, God. Sorry, my bad. With your help, I’ll try to do better.
Andy Nowicki is the author of several books, most recently The Insurrectionist, Muze, and Love and Hidden Agendas, as well as the just-published The Rule of Wrath. Visit his YouTube channel.