What we learn from air travel

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This all came crashing down last Monday night at JFK when I boarded a Delta flight to Seattle around 5 p.m. I consider JFK to be as close to a prison camp as I care to get. The Delta terminal is vast and crowded and ugly, endless lines at Ticketing, TSA agents whose badge entitles them to freely express hostility and contempt, miles of concourses lined with souvenir shops, the smell of bad food. Naming the airport for our late lamented president did him no service.We boarded the plane and sat at the gate for a while, then pulled out and sat on the tarmac. A massive storm was moving east. The pilot came on the horn every 15 minutes to apologize for the delay and say that Air Traffic Control had no idea when, if ever, we might leave. Five became six p.m. and then almost seven when suddenly he said we were clear to go and the plane sprinted toward the runway but something changed, we were too late, and we returned to the gate canceled.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I grew up among Christian people in the Midwest, polite, soft-spoken, avoiding outbursts of anger.
0:29.9	We only raged inwardly.
0:33.5	We weren't complainers.
0:35.7	We knew we weren't a great civilization like Greece, but their god, Zeus, was often violent,
0:44.6	a god of thunder and lightning, liable to wreak destruction at any moment.
0:51.7	We were gentle, as our God told us to be. We believed in an orderly world.
1:00.7	This all came crashing down last Monday night at JFK when I boarded a Delta flight to Seattle around 5 p.m.
1:14.6	I consider JFK to be as close to a prison camp as I care to get.
1:23.0	The Delta terminal is vast and crowded, ugly, endless lines at ticketing, TSA agents, whose badge
1:35.9	entitles them to freely express hostility and contempt, miles of concourses lined with souvenir shops, the smell of bad food, naming the airport for our late lamented president, did him no service.
1:55.7	We boarded the plane and sat at the gate for a while and then pulled out and sat on the tarmac.
2:05.6	A massive storm was moving east.
2:09.6	The pilot came on the horn every 15 minutes to apologize for the delay
2:15.6	and say that air traffic control had no idea when, if ever,
2:21.5	we might leave. Five became 6 p.m., and then almost 7, when suddenly he said we were clear
2:32.1	to go, and the plane sprinted toward the runway, but something
2:37.6	changed.
2:39.5	We were too late, and we returned to the gate canceled.
2:45.9	We spilled out onto Concourse B, got into a mighty river of canceled people, heading for a Delta service
2:56.6	desk and got into line. The line seemed to stretch a half mile and move about a quarter mile
3:05.6	an hour, maybe less.
3:08.3	Complex negotiations were taking place far ahead of us.
	...

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