“Flying sucks anymore”.  A young man who exited the same flight I did this afternoon was expressing his frustration to a friend as he walked through the terminal.  “Everything is so slow!”.  Okay, I get it.  I was pulling into the parking garage at the airport, right on schedule when the text came saying that my flight had been delayed three hours.  What are you going to do, right?  I had no connecting flight and I wasn’t about to drive the hour home and hour back in that time, so I just hung out and had lunch at the airport and watched the Goodyear blimp land and take off while I ate.  Pretty cool.

I have to disagree with this young man however. Just think about it.  I can fly from Omaha to Washington D.C. in 2 1/2 hours.  In less time than it would take for me to teach three classes on any given day, I can get to another time zone and 1,000 miles away.  It’s really pretty amazing.  My dad, who was career Air Force, would marvel at the fact that planes could fly at all.  He would talk about how heavy they were and how much power it took for them to even take off.  So, unless you know how to beam yourself up somewhere, flying is pretty much the best way to go.

I’ll tell you what sucks however.  I decided to take a taxi to the hotel from the airport.  I’ve been spoiled by the friend I usually travel with who gets Uber for us, but I don’t have the app – yet.  Today was probably the push I needed to get the app for sure.  The gentleman at the airport was very good at getting a cab for me and then this man got out of the cab, obviously with what was left of lunch all over his shirt, who grunted at me while he put my suitcase in the trunk and walked back to the driver’s seat.  The smell of cigarette smoke wafted out from the interior of the cab so I opted to leave the window down a bit for the ride to the hotel.  No conversation as the driver tried to get as close as he could to the bumpers of every vehicle he came in contact with so I kept my eyes on my cell phone and, quite frankly, said a quick prayer.  We arrived safely at the hotel, where he grunted some more, so I paid him and exited the smoky interior as fast as I could.  Yep, pretty sure I’m going to Uber next time.

Yes, it will be a story of trains, planes and automobiles this week as I’m looking forward to taking the metro into D.C. to have an opportunity to speak to my senators and representatives about how every child in this country deserves music as part of their well rounded education.  Now, I know that there are a lot of other things on their plates this time around, and maybe allocating funds to make sure kids get what they need educationally isn’t at the top of the list, but this is what I’m here for.  You see, it’s totally worth the time, the smoke, and all the different modes of transportation to make sure that kids get what they need. I love this week at the National Assembly with music education leaders from across the country, all of like mind, all wanting to make a difference for kids, helping them to spread their wings and take flight through music.