by Dr. Libby Vernon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years ago I was traveling from Dallas to Austin, Texas by a small airline (later to become Southwest airline).\u00a0 There was a cancellation of two flights and pandemonium reigned in the boarding area.\u00a0 In exasperation, the agent called for all the married couples to “PLEASE get in line together.\u00a0 Those flying alone, PLEASE line up behind the married couples.”\u00a0Some semblance of order began to occur as the attendant’s frustration with the milling crowd was apparent.\u00a0 I stood slightly apart from the crowd contemplating joining the long line of “singles” or simply giving up and waiting for the next flight which was scheduled near midnight.\u00a0 As I hesitated, a tall well dressed gentleman walked over to me and picked up my briefcase.\u00a0 He said, “How would you like to be married for a short time?”\u00a0 His offer solved my problem and we lined up with the married couples and were soon seated on the plane.\u00a0
We chatted about Texas and the beauty of the hill country, my work with a state agency, and admired one of the most beautiful sunsets Texas ever offered.\u00a0 Just before landing, my temporary husband thanked me for agreeing to join him in “marriage” for the flight.\u00a0 He explained that his private plane had mechanical problems and he could not reach his family to warn them he would be late.\u00a0 He was eager to avoid having them worry unnecessarily.\u00a0 We landed and went our separate ways.
I occasionally wondered if the story of the private plane was true or if it was a yarn meant to pass the time.\u00a0Several months later I was reading the business section of the “Austin Statesman” and recognized a photograph of \u00a0my “temporary husband”.\u00a0 He was president of a large corporation and likely well known in Texas business circles.\u00a0\u00a0 Since my circle of acquaintance and concern focused on children and infants, I had no idea who had saved me from waiting hours in the airport.\u00a0 The experience has always been a pleasant one.\u00a0 It jolted me into widening my awareness of what went on in the world.\u00a0 It also gave me pleasure to know that a man who could have walked to the agent and identified himself to board ahead of the crowd chose to befriend someone and wait his turn.\u00a0 My temporary marriage\u00a0was brief but as beautiful as the Texas sunset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excerpt From
Stories from the Crowd
Scott Ballew
This material may be protected by copyright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Dr. Libby Vernon Years ago I was traveling from Dallas to Austin, Texas by a small airline (later to become Southwest airline).\u00a0 There was a cancellation of two flights and pandemonium reigned in the boarding area.\u00a0 In exasperation, the agent called for all the married couples to “PLEASE get in line together.\u00a0 Those flying alone, PLEASE line up behind the married couples.”\u00a0Some semblance of order began to occur as the attendant’s frustration with the milling crowd was apparent.\u00a0 I stood slightly apart from the crowd contemplating joining the long line of “singles” or simply giving up and waiting for the next flight which was scheduled near midnight.\u00a0 As I hesitated, a tall well dressed gentleman walked over to me and picked up my briefcase.\u00a0 He said, “How would you like to be married for a short time?”\u00a0 His offer solved my problem and we lined up with the married couples and were soon seated on the plane.\u00a0We chatted about Texas and the beauty of the hill country, my work with a state agency, and admired one of the most beautiful sunsets Texas ever offered.\u00a0 Just before landing, my temporary husband thanked me for agreeing to join him in “marriage” for the flight.\u00a0 He explained that his private plane had mechanical problems and he could not reach his family to warn them he would be late.\u00a0 He was eager to avoid having them worry unnecessarily.\u00a0 We landed and went our separate ways. I occasionally wondered if the story of the private plane was true or if it was a yarn meant to pass the time.\u00a0Several months later I was reading the business section of the “Austin Statesman” and recognized a photograph of \u00a0my “temporary husband”.\u00a0 He was president of a large corporation and likely well known in Texas business circles.\u00a0\u00a0 Since my circle of acquaintance and concern focused on children and infants, I had no idea who had saved me from waiting hours in the airport.\u00a0 The experience has always been a pleasant one.\u00a0 It jolted me into widening my awareness of what went on in the world.\u00a0 It also gave me pleasure to know that a man who could have walked to the agent and identified himself to board ahead of the crowd chose to befriend someone and wait his turn.\u00a0 My temporary marriage\u00a0was brief but as beautiful as the Texas sunset. Excerpt FromStories from the CrowdScott BallewThis material may be protected by copyright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3599,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions\/3599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}