Early Morning Rain

 In June of 1969, two months after my 22nd birthday and two weeks after my graduation from college, I flew on an airplane for the first time.  I'd been accepted as a VISTA volunteer and was invited to attend the training in Austin, Texas.  I had been outside of California only once before, a brief visit to Tijuana, Mexico after a family vacation in San Diego.  VISTA had sent me a plane ticket and I was equally as excited to board a jet as I was to begin the training.  

My flight took of from LAX  at 8:00 am.  It was typical Southern California June weather, foggy, misty, and cool.  The overcast day did not alter my excitement in any way.  When the 747 jet positioned itself for takeoff and the huge engines revved, I braced myself, trying to look cool as if this was old hat for me.  The jet picked up speed, the engines noise became overpowering and the big airplane rumbled down the runway and then slowly but elegantly lifted off.  Looking out the window, all I could see was gray fog.  How, I wondered, could the pilot see where we were going?  Before I could think about that any further, the plane broke through the cloud cover and we were flying above brilliantly white, fluffy clouds surrounded by crystal clear blue sky.  It was as if this perfectly pristine world I had now entered existed all along, without me being aware of it.  I smiled.  My mood, like the weather, had changed abruptly.

Before that year ended, I had boarded jet planes 12 times.  Some of those flights began and ended in extremely hot and humid weather, some in snow storms.  Every one of them, nevertheless, had something in common.  Each time, a song was playing in my head.  Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain" became my theme song for that year.  It wasn't a perfect fit, but it was so close that it would not leave me whenever I went to the airport.

In the early morning rain
With a dollar in my hand
With an achin' in my heart
And my pockets full of sand

Some of those flights were to reunite with loved ones. My heart ached for the girlfriend who lived 1500 miles away and the close friends still in my hometown.  I was alone in a dangerous neighborhood, trying to make a difference in a world that was changing and convulsing daily.  The previous 5 years had seen the assassination of 3 iconic political leaders and a revolution in popular music.  I had lost high school friends in Vietnam and learned that the government I had been taught to respect could lie as easily as I could tell the truth.  I was constantly on the move with no car.  The dollar was in my pocket in place of sand.  I left the beaches of So. Cal behind. A dollar would buy a cup of coffee and a do-nut, or, if need be, a bus ride. 

I'm a long way from home
And I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain
With no place to go

After VISTA training I landed in Houston, Texas.  Missing everyone I knew, I was not in school for the first time in my life.  In Houston, the rain came in the early evening now.  Furious lightning and thunder storms were a daily occurrence.  They were welcomed, because they relieved the humidity.  They were feared because they could turn into hurricanes.

Out on runway number nine
Big 707 set to go
But I'm stuck here in the grass
Where the cold wind blows

Now, the liquor tasted good
And the women all were fast
Well, there she goes my friend
Well, she's rollin' down at last

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and westward bound
Far above the cloud, she'll fly

Where the mornin' rain don't fall
And the sun always shines
She'll be flyin' o'er my home
In about three hours time

Some of my flights were to California to appear before my draft board and see my father and a couple of good friends.  Some were to Chicago to see my girlfriend.  One was from Atlanta back to Houston after participating in the Vietnam Moratorium in Washing DC.  I needed to be back in Houston for a project I was working on, so I rode back from DC in a car with my VISTA colleagues and a supervisor. In Atlanta, they put me on a plane to be able to work the next day.

This old airport's got me down
It's no earthly good to me
'Cause I'm stuck here on the ground
As cold and drunk as I can be

You can't jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train
So, I'd best be on the way
In the early morning rain

I was never drunk on a plane.  The VISTA colleagues did share a joint, however, before anyone went to the airport.  A little buzz and some complimentary stereo headphones courtesy of Continental Airlines made the trip more comfortable. 

You can't jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train
So, I'd best be on the way
In the early morning rain

One of the last flights I took that year really puts this song in perspective.  My girlfriend at the 

time was in Chicago and we wanted to be together as the Draft Lottery loomed.  I took a short 

leave of absence to be with her.  We'd either remain there or she would return to Houston shortly after I did. My year in VISTA was nearing an end, so some sort of decision needed to be made.  In order to make that flight, I had to get a lift to Austin from Houston, fill out leave of absence paperwork and get the regional supervisor's  OK and signature.  That gave me time to get to the airport in Austin and wait for the last flight to Chicago that day.  Or the first flight the next morning.  The plane originated in Corpus Christie, Texas, then picked me up in Austin.  After stops in Oklahoma City  and Witchita, Kansas, it made its way to Chicago.  An all-nighter in every sense of the word. 

 That evening the song really clung to me.  The plane was running late.  I was sitting in a darkened waiting area in Austin.  Very few people were around.  The plane should have arrived at 12:15 am.  At 12:30 all the airline counters and agents shut down.  The airport became darker.  I'd been instructed to wait until a Braniff Airlines plane docked up to the gate. Then when the door opened, to walk out on the tarmac to board.  By 12:45 the plane appeared.  A portable stairway was rolled into position.  Out came two Braniff flight attendants, in their bright hot pants outfits.  I stroll out to the stairway.  It felt as if I'd flagged down an airplane.  Like I was hopping a jet plane! There was one seat left.  Ironically I sat next to a rather talkative GI just returning home from Vietnam.  The airplane rumbled into the night sky and I sat for 6 hours, arriving in Chicago about 7:00 the next morning.  The dollar in my hand bought coffee and a phone call.