Rules for the Southern Rule Breaker by Katherine Snow Smith

Author:Katherine Snow Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2019-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

14. Ice, Elevate, and Stay Off of It

Perhaps I left my suitcase in the bathroom at Tampa International Airport on the way to Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, because I was so journey proud.

My parents’ longtime friend Sally O’Keefe introduced us to the phrase “journey proud” in the 1960s. Her husband was my dad’s editor at the Raleigh Times, and they all traveled together from time to time.

“I’m just so journey proud I couldn’t sleep last night,” Sally would say when they headed off to a newspaper convention at the Blockade Runner in Wilmington, the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst, or the Sheraton in Washington, D.C. We adopted the phrase and used it whenever we were excited and a little overwhelmed about impending travel.

Decades later, I’d hear a friend from Charlotte and another from Greenville, Alabama, talk about being journey proud and realized that it wasn’t just Sally O’Keefe’s term, but an actual colloquialism. An online reference defines journey proud as “being greatly excited about a journey.”

If ever there was a time to be journey proud, it was when I was sitting on a plane about to take off for Washington, D.C., to see the inauguration of our first African American president.

I was traveling solo for the first time in a while. Adam, my husband at the time and the Tampa Bay Times political editor, was already in our nation’s capital covering the impending transition of power and a babysitter was home with our three children. I headed out with just my overstuffed carry-on suitcase, a Vanity Fair, and me. When the flight attendant asked passengers to make sure bags were securely stowed under the seat in front of us or in the overhead storage bin, I wanted to throw up. I immediately realized I had no bag to stow because I’d left it in the airport bathroom.

“Can you hold the plane while I run and get it?” I asked the flight attendant.

“We have to close the door in three minutes. We won’t wait.”

“But I’m checked in. I’m standing here telling you I’ll be right back.”

“We can’t wait for you. I’m sorry. It’s up to you if you want to deplane.”

I had no time go all Ben-Stiller-from-Meet-the-Parents on her and made a split-second decision to go for it. I bolted off the plane, ran past six gates to the bathroom, and there sat my olive-green bag right where I’d left it outside the last stall on the right.

I grabbed it and raced back to the gate in my gray suede wedge-heel boots, picking up speed as I ran down the bridge to the plane. Too much speed, apparently. I totally busted and dragged the suitcase over my left foot as I fell.

A flight attendant came rushing out and helped me hobble onto the plane. He stowed my bag for me while I took the last seat available in the middle of the third row, reassuring alarmed passengers who had heard my tumble that I was okay and not drunk.

Flight attendants cajoled me with bags of ice, insurance waivers, and incident reports to sign throughout the flight.

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