Our saga begins on October 15, 1971. I was on my way to an accountants’ convention in Spain. This was virtually the last year that the IRS allowed national associations to hold conventions outside the US, and we were not going to let the opportunity pass. I took a flight to Detroit and there I was to join other charter groups going to Spain. We were to board a DC-10 and take a direct flight to Spain. But the weather was bad in parts of Ohio and Michigan and some of the other connecting flights had been delayed. In fact, one of them had been cancelled.

The group that almost missed the flight because of that cancellation was a group of Hadassah women from Columbus, Ohio. Close to 40 of them as I recall. This was the problem: this DC-10 was not a regularly scheduled flight. It was a charter. So when a substantial number of passengers were at risk of missing the trip, they had to find some way to go get them. Otherwise no profit……otherwise no flight.

The solution (concocted about 2 hours after we should have taken off for Spain) was to bus the ladies from Columbus to the Mansfield, Ohio, airport. And the DC-10 would make a quick jump there before heading off across the Atlantic.

It looked good on paper. So the rest of us off took off about 11:00 pm to rescue the women of Hadassah.

Some background now. Hadassah is a Jewish women’s organization. Probably a lot like the United Methodist Women, with a few obvious exceptions. And then there is the matter of my seat on the plane. It was my first (and, as it happens, last) European trip. I was 24 and eager to please. So I indicated no seating preference. I was rewarded with quite possibly the worst seat on the plane. It was on the front row right next to the entrance. My row only had two seats and there was no place to put my attaché case.

The first omen of bad things to come came when the stewardess took my attaché, tagged it, and loaded it on the tiny elevator to send it down to some dark place in the belly of the plane. I was close enough that I heard it fall off the lift and hit the bottom. And I also heard the elevator smash it 15 seconds later. The stewardess soon came back with it, holding it in her outstretched arms like a sacrifice to some Babylonian god. “Perhaps you’d like to tape this up before we put it back,” she said, simultaneously handing me the duct tape and a damage claim form.

Would that the story ended there.

As irritated as I was, I actually had a good seat to watch the story that was about to unfold. We soon landed at the Mansfield airport and I could see the crowd at the terminal. I found out later that Mansfield was chosen because it had a landing strip long enough (and thawed enough) to handle a DC-10. I also found out later that only a few weeks before, a DC-9 had landed and it made the front page of the paper, it being the largest aircraft ever to grace their airport. And now here comes a DC-10. Thus, the crowd at the terminal. In addition to the 40 or so travelers, we had uniformed fire department officers, uniformed police officers, the entire city council and, of course, the Mayor. And all were also accompanied by their respective spouses. And it was about 1:00 am and stunningly cold.

The plane door was opened (the one right in front of me), the stewardess stuck her head out and the terminal crowd waved.

As you might guess, this particular airport did not have those wonderful telescoping boarding ramps. They had one of those rolling staircases (hey, it’s good enough for the President), and they began to roll it out. And I had, literally, a front row seat. I watched it being slowly pushed toward the plane. I watched it as it reached the plane. And I watched the faces of all concerned when they realized it was a full story short.

One by one, the Captain and all his crew came to the door and looked down at that staircase, shaking their heads. And then they looked at the group of Hadassah women gesticulating furiously.

What happened next is almost unbelievable, but you really can’t make this stuff up. Some genius (and compared to that shining star that decided to take us to Mansfield, he WAS a genius) figured out how they could strap a ladder onto the top of the stairs. And that’s what they did. I don’t know if they used rope, string or rubber bands, but soon the upper rungs of that ladder appeared at the open plane door. A hale and hearty airport official made the first trip up the ladder to check things out. He did not fall to his death, so they decided to proceed.

Now comes the march of the Hadassah women. Single file, snaking from the terminal to the staircase in the freezing cold. And now also comes the indelicate part of the story. Lovely women, all, I’m sure. But their average age was pushing the highway speed limit and their weight surely averaged, well, ……………….

But up the stairs they came. Then up the ladder. Each was met by two additional hale and hearty types to help them into the plane. Each man reached down and grabbed an arm and then hauled the ladies on board. I will never be able to get those images out of my brain.

These women were braver souls than I. I applaud their courage. But happy campers they were not. As the song says, I heard words I never heard in the bible. And most of them were in Yiddish. Some in Hebrew. The muttering began as each reached the first rung of the ladder and would finally fade only as they marched down the isle to their seats. No doubt, their grandchildren still tell the story.

That all took about an hour. A very long and a very cold hour. I should have known what was coming next, but I was an inexperienced traveler. Unless there’s an emergency, you can’t land a plane that is nearly full of fuel. So on our little junket to Ohio we did not carry the fuel necessary to get to Spain. We had to “filler up” in Mansfield.

Just like there were no telescoping boarding ramps, there were no tankers of any useful size. They weren’t prepared to fuel up a DC-10 going to Europe. And thus began the “bucket brigade”. Every vehicle with a tank and at least three wheels was pressed into service. And each made multiple trips. I didn’t actually see a red wagon with buckets, but I saw just about everything else. So for about another hour, the procession proceeded.

And we can’t forget about the VIPs. While fuel was being loaded into the plane, so too were the firefighters, policeman and political dignitaries. And their spouses. And they all began their unforgettable 15 minutes of fame right in front of me. (By this time I had my own blanket, my own tissue box and my own cold.) Oe by one, two by two, four by four, the crew showed them around the plane. Heard more than once: “Goooolly, Martha, look at the size of this thing.” Up the ladder, through the plane, down the ladder. All with that open plane door. I always suspected that one or two of them just stayed on board. By this time nobody would have noticed and nobody would have cared.

And thus ends the saga, but not the story. Other situations developed concerning Sangria punch, Spanish potatoes, 80 proof accountants, tourist trap nightclubs, Mediterranean beaches, the Casbah, Moroccan rugs, belly dancers, camel rides, cobra thrills, and Bangor, Maine. But it is Mansfield, Ohio, that takes the prize for my most interesting travel experience.

Shalom.