September, 1996 (continued):
Health Food
Following my extraordinarily fun Atlanta trip, I flew to New Orleans, where Steve Olson had arranged for me to a guest speaker at the Public Radio Program Directors Association’s annual conference.
When I reached my hotel room, I found awaiting me a beautiful table setting of whipped cream, strawberries, and what looked like crushed pralines.
I called Room Service and said, “Hey, this is really beautiful! Where’s the ice cream for the sundae?”
I was told that the “crushed pralines” actually was powered brown sugar and that the dessert — a New Orleans tradition — was complete without any ice cream.
So I ate it that way. It was good, but I still think it could have used some vanilla ice cream.
After my session, I left the hotel at 4:40PM in a taxi for the airport; my flight was scheduled for 6:10.
It was raining quite hard and the traffic was very slow…so slow that I fretted about reaching the airport in time.
As luck would have it, I found myself with the only taxi driver in America who drives slower than the speed limit.
He seemed intent upon leaving empty three car lengths ahead of us…which is a good idea at high speeds (or even at moderate speeds in the rain) but which when barely moving only meant that we repeatedly found ourselves further back in traffic by three additional cars (at which time, of course, he would slow down to allow for three more car lengths to intervene between us and the car ahead).
We reached the airport at 5:50 — a mere 20 minutes before my flight.
I raced inside to look for my gate…only (of course) to be told the flight was delayed until 6:40.
