The Saga of Friendship Bridge; The Agony & NOW,.... The Ecstasy?

Weird title huh? But ecstasy describes exactly what many of us longsuffering AC residents felt today when we FINALLY were able to simply drive over the newly completed Friendship Bridge. See the map below where it is circled in red to see where the bridge crosses the Abacan. What a treat to drive above the river bed without having to worry about waiting in line or breaking an axel in an extra deep washout. Zoom! I was across it in seconds where in the past it has taken as long as 20 or 30 minutes during rush hour when we had to wait in line to cross the "temporary" single lane bridge over huge rusted-out steel plates that clanged and jumped alarmingly as we drove over them.

The Abacan River passes directly through Angeles City and it's outlying barrios from the east after originating from the slopes of the infamous Mount Pinatubo. Most folks familiar with the Philippines know all about what happened in June 1991 when that supposedly "extinct" volcano decided to revive itself and blow its top over much of this area. Massive amounts of volcanic dust and debris, called lahar, stacked up in huge slabs hundreds of feet thick on the slopes around the volcano. The storms of that rainy season and those of the next several rainy seasons washed gigantic chunks of lahar down into the Abacan river channel. The water mixed with the lahar to make a destructive slurry that washed away everything in its path, including all the bridges of Angeles City. The banks of the river also continually carved away the river bank, slicing away more and more real estate until the channel became hundreds of feet wide in places. Over the days and months, more and more homes and busineses disappeared into the brown angry river. It became more paste than water when the rains came down in torrents that lasted for days and weeks as they tend to do here in the tropics.

See the map above to see how Pinatubo is situated in relation to Angeles City. The river rushes down from the volcano's slopes, passes south of Clark Air Base and then forms the northern boundary of Angeles City proper. The very first bridge in it's path is Friendship Bridge and it has taken the full brunt and fury of its crushing rushing mounds of thick lahar mud.

The above photo was taken on 26 Sep 06 from the south side of the new bridge before it was open. On the left side of it can be seen what's left of the original bridge. I believe they left the old pilings in place just to the west of the new bridge to help protect it from future lahar flows. I'm told that there are still millions of tons of the stuff waiting to wash down on us. Oh joy!

I took the shot above just today. This is the southern approach with the bridge directly ahead just a hundred or so meters. There is a woodcarving workshop to the right where I snapped the photo. Some of their creations are visible in the shot.

This photo (above) was also taken today, 7 Oct 06, from the southern "on ramp." This ramp, a good 20 feet high at its tallest, did not exist until about a year ago when scores of dumptrunks hauled in tons of fill to create it. The riverbed has become so wide here that the only way to bridge it is to bring in more and more earth and hope that it won't just wash out around the ends of it. That's how the last two bridges on that spot were lost. That, and a bad case of under-engineering based on "under-funding," which I've heard happened because of "funds skimming." It's only rumor, mind you, so it might be true or not. But, if I had to bet...!

These are more views (above) of the vestiges of the previous bridge; you can see it's "bones" lying in the channel, which is mostly dry, even throughout the rainy season. It takes many days of hard steady rain for the channel to fill with water from bank to bank. I've only seen that happen once or twice in the four plus years I've lived here.

Another view like the ones above, only taken from near the beginning of the southern ramp looking toward the unopened new bridge with the broken pieces of the old bridge to it's western side in the distance.

I took the pic above and the three that follow over the last couple of weeks. They show stills of the finishing touches being done on the north side approach and onramp. It may not be obvious in the picture, but the ramp curves around to the right as it approaches the bridge from the north. That's why the presence of the heavy-duty reinforced concrete traffic "teeth," to prevent vehicles from plowing off the ramp and possibly into homes or people.

The entire north side was completed in just over one month. The bridge was closed completely to traffic on 21 Aug 06 to let the construction crews go at it unhindered. It has been a horrible inconvenience for those of us on the "wrong" side of the river.


My daughter's school and my gym are just across the bridge and used to take just 5 minutes to get there. Suddenly, we had to drive all the way around to the next bridge in Hensonville, which added at times 20 or 30 minutes to the drive depending on the traffic.

The guys above stopped for a moment when I asked them to wave and smile. It reminded me again how sweet the people of this country are. In the US, if I'd have asked some construction types to pose and smile for a photo, more than likely I would have been told to go to hell, or worse.

This photo (above) was taken today of the mostly finished north side approach and ramp. The construction crane is still there, although its need is long past. It has been almost two years since this bridge was started. We had high hopes when the pilings were first put in all those many months ago that we would soon have a REAL bridge to cross that cursed river. None of us dreamed that it would take all this time to finish. ONLY in the Philippines!

School Days

What is it about watching our kids at school when its time for them to "show their stuff" in their sweet little pageants, plays and field days that makes us parents wild with pride and beam like million candle lightbulbs? I was right there with all the other super proud parents jockeying for position with my ancient digicam, fighting for the perfect angle to take just the right pic of daddy's little pride and joy.
I'm not sure what today's occasion was exactly, the marking of the end of the semester I suppose. The kids have been practising their cheers and school song for weeks in preparation for today's culminating event--I think they called it "Sport Fest." Like most happenings here there was an air of confusion and disorganization. None of us knew where to stand or what was supposed to happen next. It's all very exasperating for anal ol' me, but I think I'm getting used to it. It doesn't seem to bother me like it used to. "Go with the flow baby!" That's my new motto.
It never fails to happen, but I've ALSO learned not to get "too" upset when someone decides to stand directly in front of me as they too seek out the best view of their child. Now, I just tap 'em on the shoulder and tell them "Hey, you don't see me standing here!?" Just kidding...that was the old me; now I put a big smile on my face, still tap 'em on the shoulder and and say, "excuse me," and when they turn around to look, I shrug my shoulders a little and cock my head. Usually they move, and if not, I do. Life is too short.
More than half the kids at the school are mestiza just like my little beauty. Sometimes we get a little nervous, especially away from around here where there aren't many other mixed children. People will stare unabashedly at my girls, mostly I'm told, because folks are fascinated by them and think them unusually attractive. Of course, they are my little girls so naturally I think they are absolutely correct!
The first thing they did this morning was to form up in their classroom groups and put on their cute uniforms. My girl belonged to the Blue Whales; how they came up with that, you got me. I felt sorry for the little boys who happened to find themselves in with The Pink Panthers. Those poor guys were stuck wearing some very "fruity" looking pink uniforms, if you know what I mean.

Each class did a cheer. These cheers originated in the US and basically, in unison, they in effect "beat their chests" crowing out how superior they are to all the other teams while claiming that they will soundly defeat these other much inferior teams. What is strange is that it contradicts the speech the principle gave just moments before when she spoke of "good sportsmanship" and that "its not who wins or loses, but how you play the game." These ridiculous cheers have nothing at all to do with good sportsmanship. It's no wonder golf is my favorite sport to watch on TV these days, where the competitors actually RESPECT each other.
One of the crowd favorites was the dances performed by each class. The teachers obviously choose their best dancers and put them in front of each dance formation. I'm proud to say that my little "mover" was right there in the front of her column. No surprise, since rhythm runs in the family!

Unfortunately, my memory card ran out of room before the classes ran their relay races. My tiny athlete competed with her class in the potato sack race, where they hop inside a nylon bag to and around a pylon before hopping back to the next "hopper" in line. Out of the 3 sports fests I've watched my girl run in, this was the first time her team won their race. It was a very exciting back-and-forth affar, very nearly a photo finish, but in the end, the blue ribbon went to our team. Yay!

But that is no reason to acquit the guns

“…There are no simple solutions to this conflict. It is neither possible nor tolerable to secure every school or guard every child. Nor is it possible or politically tolerable to keep tabs on every gun. But in these killings we see an open society threatened by the ubiquity of its weapons, in which one kind of freedom is allowed to trump all others. Most gun owners are respectable, law-abiding citizens. But that is no reason to acquit the guns.”

Those are the last half-dozen sentences in a recent NY Times online Editorial concerning the recent school shootings of innocent children by sexually tortured madmen. The author asserts all as foregone conclusions, but are they? Knowing the political bent of the NYT, of course I knew I was going to read something anti-gun, and it is, but it brings up some interesting points. It’s time for some dissection…

“…There are no simple solutions to this conflict.” – THE “conflict” referred to here being that between those who support control of gun ownership and those who don’t. The choice of conflict is in itself telling; after all, why should gun control be THE conflict? Why not also discuss the conflict between those who are for and against trying to control that in our society which breeds and encourages sexual deviants and killers? The pervert in Colorado raped the girls before he started to kill them, and the evidence shows that the copycat Amish school killer planned on doing the same. So instead of obsessing over the weapons they chose, the question COULD INSTEAD be, “What is it about our society that produces these sickos in the first place?” The NYT evidently doesn’t want to look at the seamy sex and violence promoted and glorified by Hollywood, cable, the Internet and other media, because that would contravene the progressives’ viewpoint that 1^st Amendment free speech rights are FAR more important than our 2^nd Amendment right to arms, but why should the NYT get to pick which Constitutional rights are worthy of discarding or amending and which aren’t? I guess it’s a good thing that that isn’t up to The New York Times.

“It is neither possible nor tolerable to secure every school or guard every child.” – I understand the point that every child would be difficult to protect all the time, but why is it “intolerable” to secure every school? In the Air Force we secured quite well square miles of areas and buildings using all sorts of simple AND complex means, but once again the progressive NYT would say that providing the same level of security for our schools would be “stifling,” and in fact be a “chilling” attack on our individual rights to privacy. The simple use of encrypted photo ID cards and more investment in better security technology would go a long way in keeping our kids safe in their school environment and even outside of it. Just the mention of a national ID drives progressives and libertarians crazy with paranoiac fears of a “big-brother” society. Again, guarding ALL our schools and our kids better than we do now should not be considered impossible, and certainly NOT “intolerable.”

“Nor is it possible or politically tolerable to keep tabs on every gun.” – Actually, it is possible to do this, especially with the tracking technology we have today. I’ll be upfront on this—I am NOT an NRA gun guy, which is the “politically intolerable” reference of the above statement. I, like the NRA, DO believe that Americans have a right to have and bear arms, but unlike some extremist NRA members, I say that there is nothing implied by the 2^nd Amendment that ALL SORTS of weaponry should be legal for private citizens to own, nor is there anything that states that we can’t control and track those weapons that ARE in the general populace. The NRA seems to be against this aspect of gun control because, they say “Big Brother” could then come into your home and TAKE your guns whenever HE feels the need. Isn’t it ironic, how both the extreme left AND the extreme right BOTH share a common paranoiac fear of “Big Brother?”

“But in these killings we see an open society threatened by the ubiquity of its weapons, in which one kind of freedom is allowed to trump all others.” – Here we go again, The NYT complaining of the “evils” of the 2^nd Amendment. Yet, you will never hear a similar concern over other, perhaps just as “dangerous” civil rights, such as the willingness of our society to allow our children to be immersed in wanton images of sex and violence and all in the name of “all important” 1^st Amendment free speech rights. Or, how about the left’s concerns for “privacy rights” and how they are being “trampled” by President Bush’s minions as he successfully keeps tabs on terrorists’ electronic communications and on the location and movement of their funds. Evidently it was okay when Clinton’s guys did it, and they DID do it, but the “rogue” Bush Administration is NOT to be trusted to do similar things.

"Most gun owners are respectable, law-abiding citizens. But that is no reason to acquit the guns." – For some mysterious reason the writer chooses to separate this compound thought into two separate and distinct ones, but hey, he’s the professional writer while I’m the dabbler. Having said that, look at the two separate sentences again—now, do you see WHY the author purposely seems to disguise this single argument into two thoughts? It was probably done so by HIS editor because the first part does NOT support the second or vice versa. Either way, it’s just plain muddleheaded to declare that most gun owners are law-abiding, but their guns are not! What the…?

Getting past the dim-witted “false argument” put forth by this person, these two sentences get to the meat-and-potatoes of what this NYT author actually wants—namely, NO private gun ownership. The writer seems to say: “put guns on trial and find them guilty;” for isn’t that what “not acquitting” them means? It is a ridiculous concept anyway—putting inanimate objects on trial for murder—but it’s a play on the NRA’s equally ridiculous assertion that “guns don’t kill people, people do.” I don’t think either argument qualifies as one of the accepted “inductive and deductive arguments” of critical thinking.

Aside from the false philosophy of defending harebrained positions—to “sensible” moderate types like me, BOTH sides seem just as silly. We “moderates” say—guns need to be controlled, not outlawed; and we also say that those elements of society that seek to debase us ALSO need to be controlled and reined in—what’s so hard about that?

Letters from Bootcamp, Installment V (The Breakdown)

The following two letters represent my lowest point in bootcamp. You won’t actually read it in these letters home, but I mentally and emotionally “broke” during this torturous week of duty at the mess hall at the Edson Rifle Range on Camp Pendleton. …More on that difficult moment at the end of these letters.

Mess duty was sheer hell. I have never done anything tougher before or since. Day after day they kept us standing, no sitting, no squatting nor resting our feet and legs in any fashion whatsoever. My feet swelled up, cracked and bled. I think many of my current podiatric problems today stem from that single week of agony. Just the same, it was a valuable training experience. I became tougher from the physical hardship, knowing that I had bested the challenge of it, but the mental abuse was another matter all together.

I NEVER forgave the drill instructors for their cruel shenanigans; even to this day I hate them for it. I hope recruit training policy has changed over the last 31 years, because the behavior I saw from those jerks had nothing at all to do with turning young men into ready marines. They seemed to operate under some misguided notion that administering mental cruelty and humiliation was going to make us worthy of the “Eagle Globe & Anchor.” They never stopped trying to shock us, most of us more teenager then men, with outrageously immoral language including the foul descriptions of every sort of sexual deviancy you can imagine, or in my case, NEVER imagined. Every single DI and platoon commander I came in contact with would “lock me up” into the position of attention and proceed to tell me I was ugly, that my mother and sister’s were whores, etc.; and the primary reason they picked on the women in my family is because I had no girlfriend or wife for them to disparage. To this day I don’t understand their methodology. I trust it is no longer like that. By all means they should increase the physical training, make it tougher even, but get rid of the putrid gratuitous sex talk and coarse language. The constant immersion in depravity and unwarranted degradation had more to do with my emotional collapse than any physical hardship I experienced. I became so contemptuous of my DI’s that unlike many of my fellow platoon mates I did NOT go up to them to shake their hands after graduation. To this day I would go out of my way to avoid them.

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July 28, 1975 – Dear family:

I learned today what it is like to be on your feet for 16 straight hours without sitting down or leaning against something, except for 15 minute meals. Not only that, in that old mess hall I’m constantly moving with dirty dishes, clean ones, silverware, plus sweeping and swabbing the deck, and changing table cloths, and to make it hell those big shot, belligerent DI’s telling you to get your ass over there, or if you get too close, to get your ass OUT of there OR you’ll be wearing the dirty plates. Those DI’s are really “cute.” To top off the big day, we come back to the barracks and do some real sweaty push-ups and pull-ups and mountain climbers and bends-and-thrusts.

Here at the new barracks Mark (from my hometown) is my rack partner. He has bottom. We’ve hardly spent any time here though. As soon as we get up we march over to the mess hall, when we’re done, we march back and after a shower, hit the rack. Right now it’s only a little past 2000 and I’m already too tired to think straight.

We’re having mail call right now. So far I haven’t heard my name called. If I get any I probably won’t have time to read it anyway.

Boy! This barracks sure isn’t as nice as the last one we were in. It’s got ugly concrete floors and the paint is a shabby green.

Well, how’s things there? I probably shouldn’t ask that question, but I’m always thinking it.

He didn’t call my name so I guess I’ll have to wait a few days for the next mail call. Mark says, “Hi!” and so do “I.”

Love, “Phil”

P.S. What did you think of the roster I sent you?

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July 29, 1975

Boy do my feet hurt! We got up this morning at 2:30 a.m. for mess duty after hitting the rack at 9 p.m. last night. 5 ½ hours sleep followed by a 17 hour work period, not being allowed to sit down and all topped off by SI (a nickname for disciplinary exercise).

You know, before this mess duty I used to respect my superiors. Now, I have an absolute, no doubts about it, detestation and distrust for them all. I actually hate their twisted guts. You should see the crap they give me just to show off in front of each other; and the things they talk about are so gross and nasty it turns my stomach. Even though on the outside I’m keeping my cool and showing respect for them, inside I hate their guts and I’m telling them to go “someplace.”

I just received your letter and Terry’s too. It sure is good to get news of home. This coming Thursday it’ll be 5 weeks since I left home. My attitude sure has changed since then (finish later…)

July 30, 1975

I just got Gail’s and Mary Kay’s letters and even one from Jean Martin (a high school friend). That sure surprised me. As I was saying, my attitudes are a far cry from what they were back there. For one thing, once my 4 years are up, I’m coming home to stay. I’ve come to the conclusion there’s no place like home and your own family.

Paula Snyder’s boyfriend sure was a sucker. If he only knew (what) the hell he was going to go through he’d back out right now. He still can you know. You can back out right up till the time of the final swearing-in at Detroit. Once you’re past there they’ve got you where they want you and you stay in till you graduate or they kick you out. There’s no such thing as not making it. All they do is put you in a platoon a few weeks behind, such as if you don’t qualify on the rifle range, or you don’t pass the physical fitness test, or maybe your DIs’ just plain don’t like you. That happened to 3 guys in our platoon already. The platoon commander didn’t like them, so he kept looking for excuses to can them, and a few weeks back he did exactly that.

I’ve got another problem. It seems that the bottom of my feet are all tender and throb with pain when I stand on them. It’s from standing on them and walking super fast. (Finish later).

Aug 1, 1975

Well, here it is 2 days later. Am I ever bushed. Tomorrow is the last day of mess duty, thank God. Hopefully, when we start at the rifle range, or I should say at the “snapping in range,” as they call it, (it won’t be as tough as mess duty). Snapping-in is where the platoon gets in a big circle and learns all the different firing positions. We have 1 week of that, and that’s followed by 1 week of actual firing, the last 2 of which are qualifying days. If you don’t qualify, you don’t graduate until you do, which actually means you get set back for 2 weeks.

When we get through with rifle range, we go on a 17 mile march to ITS (Infantry Training School) with a pack over some pretty rugged looking hills. So far, the worst part of bootcamp has been mess duty. The days are long and wearisome and you’re always tired.

From our new barracks here at Pendleton you can see the Pacific Ocean. It’s only about ¾ of a mile away, if that far, across a highway that parallels the coastline. It’s the first time I’ve ever really seen it. I don’t remember seeing it when I was younger of course.

Tomorrow, after we’re relieved from mess duty by some new suckers a week behind us, we’ll go and check out our weapons (M-16s) at about 1 p.m. or 4 o’clock there.

I got a letter from you dated the 23^rd and one from Grandma Haley dated the 28^th. I’ll be writing again Sunday to answer all the letters I’ve received. We should have some pretty good free time then.

That’s all for now. Keep writing! Love, Phil

P.S. Glad to hear Dad is beginning to come around again. Can’t wait to play some golf. (Sorry it’s so messy, not much time).

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Some time before the 1^st of August I had an unexpected “moment of collapse;” I think folks used to call it a nervous breakdown. I had no idea that it was in the offing; truthfully, I was stunned. Here’s how it went.

As I said, mess duty was tougher than I ever could have imagined. We had gone through five or six days with little sleep and non-stop sessions of 16 to 18 hours on our feet with no sitting allowed or rest of any kind. At the beginning of that torturous spate I hadn’t been allowed to attend Mass, which was devastating for me; that alone gnawed at my guts and began my downward slide. The DI’s, ALL of them in my case, since I was usually assigned to wait on the DI tables, badgered me with humiliating commands and continuously directed nauseating comments at me. I was expected to maintain my decorum and keep my face and manner stoic even as they did not. These vile creatures, poor excuses for human beings, or so I thought, wore me down even more than the physical hardships.

I managed to do pretty well, even after those days of pain and mental strain, and then something happened that portended my eventual moment of disintegration. About six of us were using Brasso to shine up some burnished metal hand railings on one side of the mess hall. My feet and lower legs were painfully swollen; they throbbed and ached and I could hardly put my boots on over them. A moment came when I knew I had had enough. I did a forbidden thing, I rebelled and sat down. The other recruits with me were aghast at my defiance. They surrounded me and tried to convince me to get up, but my mind was made up and then it just turned off; I barely heard them and hardly noticed what they said. I kept my head straight ahead and just stared at the wall. They kept at me, pleading with me to stand up. I ignored them.

Then, one of the DI’s, Sergeant Threadgill, a black fellow, and the one man of them with even a modicum of humanity, noticed the fuss and came over. Even with his arrival I still did NOT care; I continued to stubbornly sit. He came over and stood directly in front of me across the table. He started to question me and then stopped abruptly. He told the other recruits to disperse, telling them to leave me be. “He’ll get up in ten minutes,” he announced. It was completely out of character for any DI, a seeming moment of kindness I never saw from any of them again, and I deeply appreciated it. It snapped me out of my “suicidal” funk and caused me too come to my senses, at least for the moment. I got up and went back to work as soon as he turned and walked off.

The next day was more of the same, only worse because 24 more hours of it had passed. It was late into the noon meal and I was waiting on the DI tables again. One of the undersized drill instructors from another platoon who loved to screw his face into a studied vision of meanness, called me over and once I was “locked up” across the table from him, he threw his soup spoon into my chest. With his face contorted with phony rage and contempt, he claimed I was a sorry excuse even for a piece-of-shit recruit, and went on to order me to get some clean f**king silverware.

“Aye Aye Sir!” I yelled, doing an about-face and bolting away in a sprint to get him new eating utensils. I ran back, reported to him in the required manner, and presented a new set of forks and spoons to him while relocked tightly into the position of attention. He dismissed me without a look, intent on finding new “prey;” so I went to ground to find and retrieve his “dirty” spoon. On my hands and knees on the floor I felt something “cave” inside my chest. I stifled a sob of rage and humiliation. My hands shook and two tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘What the hell?’ I thought. ‘What is going on?” I had no idea having been through much worse than this, so why the sudden reaction? I regained my composure and returned to work, but a tightness remained in my throat and an empty dullness had taken over my brain.

After the last of the recruits had “force-fed themselves” and marched off to their pursuits on the rifle range, I wandered over to the tiny deep sink room to find a broom. Upon entering I allowed the door to close behind me and noticed vaguely that it had a pushbutton lock on the knob. Not thinking, I locked it. I stood there for a moment and without warning feelings of worthlessness and despair washed over me. Deep racking sobs suddenly erupted from deep within my body feeling exactly like emotional retching; it was completely out of my control. I didn’t know it was coming and I couldn’t stop it once it had started. I knew though, that whatever was happening had to run its course. It went like that for at least two minutes, my body aching with the effort of it, and interestingly, I became outside myself. It didn’t feel like me anymore, this person racked with sobs, as if it was happening to someone else. I was an interested observer watching some guy cry like a baby. Then, it was over. I stopped and felt immediately better, both physically and emotionally. It was a completely cathartic and involuntary.

For a moment I had broken, but now I was rejuvenated, a phoenix rising anew from the ashes of myself. What an effort it must have been to hold onto all that grief and emotional overload. I didn’t even know it was in there until by accident my mind and body found a moment to release it. After that, I was good to go. Never again did I let them get to me. I went on to graduate in the top ten percent of my platoon earning the meritorious rank of private first class. I still don’t qunderstand what happened to me, but I’m glad it happened when no one could see it! You know what they say…Big boys DON’T cry!

Kristin Chenoweth? Oh Yeah, We Talked!

I settled in last night to watch some TV and decided to watch the Filipino HBO premiere of the Nicole Kidman, Wil Ferrel cinematic version of “Bewitched.” I knew it to be a “fluff” movie, a light comedic affair; but my interest suddenly perked during the opening credits when I saw that Kristin Chenoweth is in it. After all, I KNOW Kristin.

The scene: Just outside one of the domestic terminals at LAX.

The date: The last week of October 2001, less than 60 days after 9/11.

The time: Early afternoon.

A squadron mate, a flight navigator with the rank of major, and I, “an enlisted avionics maintenance puke,” had just finished a week at Edwards Air Force Base toiling as Air Force operational testers for Air Mobility Command. We had arrived at the airport many hours before our flight knowing that airport security was going to be a perplexing painfully-protracted production, which indeed it was turning out to be. Terminal check-in was so full of switch-backing lines of travelers that most of us were queued up for hundreds of yards on the outside sidewalks. We couldn't even get in to the building. I prayed that it wouldn't rain. The sole of my left foot was still tender from surgery in late August, so after just a few minutes of standing I was feeling painfully uncomfortable.

Desperate to get my mind off my throbbing foot, I checked out the roiling mass of confusion around me. In line behind us were two beautiful women, a short blond and a taller brunette, both wore stylish sunglasses. I nodded to the little one, her ash-blonde hair pulled tightly into a ponytail; the tail drawn through the backend of a cute baseball cap, and attempted small talk. Shyly, I remarked to her, “What a mess huh?”

Surprisingly, she smiled dazzlingly and actually spoke back to me with a slight Midwestern draw, “It sure is; looks like we are in for quite a wait just to get inside the terminal.”

In no time at all, the four of us were chatting and laughing like old friends. Introducing ourselves to the two Hollywood-looking ladies with their darkened glasses and casual blue-jeaned elegance, we exchanged handshakes and names. I admit that at the time I had never heard of Kristin, but as we continued to converse, I asked the girls what they “did.” I knew that the tall dark-haired woman looked to be Kristin’s assistant, or some kind of helper from her deference and the way they talked together. With just a few minutes of chat between us, I already felt at ease enough with them to ask, “So Kristin, are you in show business or something?”

She smiled and answered modestly, “Oh yes, I sing and act on Broadway out east, and do some acting on television out here as well. Actually, we’re heading back to my place in New York now that my TV show just got cancelled.”

“Excuse me. What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was she pulling my leg? In disbelief, my words fairly tumbling out of mouth, I gushed, “Are you kidding me? What did you say your name is again? Wait, did you say you sing and act ON Broadway? You’re not talking about OFF Broadway, are you? And you HAD a TV show! Wow!”

Now her assistant chimed in chuckling, “She sure does. She’s done several things on Broadway; she won a Tony a couple years ago forYou’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” She said this very nonchalantly, as if none of it was any big deal whatsoever.

My mouth hung open to my chest; I turned to the taller woman’s diminutive companion with new respect and awe in my voice. “Kristin, YOU have a TONY! Oh my God! Get out of here! That’s unbelievable! Dang…sorry I don’t know you, but may I have your autograph… please?”

She laughed delighted and answered good-naturedly, “Of course you may!” She turned to her assistant who gave her a pen and a sheet of paper from a planner. “I’ll give you my email address too if you’d like.”

Kristin was completely unassuming, a real person, and genuinely interested in us. She wanted to know what we did in the Air Force, and listened carefully as we explained the technical aspects of aircraft systems testing. She even asked a few questions, which we gladly answered in full.

The line continued to move slowly towards the terminal doors, but now I no longer paid any mind to the pain in my feet. I was completely caught up in our continuing conversation. We picked up our bags or kicked them forward a few inches, talked about making TV shows and movies, Broadway plays and musicals, living the bi-coastal life, and about our life and work in the Air Force. I’m not sure how long we talked, but it was for much longer than an hour. Our enjoyable little chance get-together finally came to an end when an airline representative came along the line and called out their flight number; so off they went, but before leaving, Kristin and her assistant wished us well, shook our hands, and looking over their shoulders waved so long.

Kristin Chenoweth is not a superstar like Nicole Kidman or Jude Law, but she’s been in a lot of TV shows, movies and Broadway productions. What a treat it was to meet such a sincerely sweet person from the entertainment industry. She seemed like a nice girl from a small town to me. I hope her career continues to progress well. A nice person like her deserves all the best.

Watching her in “Bewitched” made the movie all the more fun and enjoyable to watch. It was like seeing a friend or a family member perform, which after our short meeting in 2001 I certainly now consider her to be. Since meeting her that day outside the terminal of LAX, I watch for her and go out of my way to watch all her performances. Last year, I saw her perform at the Tony Awards Show and realized that THAT girl can sing too. She’s a little woman with a BIG voice.

Kristin Chenoweth—if you don’t know who she is, or never heard of her, take notice and watch for her. If you were to ever bump into her at an airport or a restaurant like I did, I’m sure you would love her just as much as I do—you too will be a fan for life.