Using the bathroom in an airplane requires extreme precision. But it shouldn’t be called a bathroom; it doesn’t merit the name. Large enough for a toadstool, there’s no room inside it, nor are there windows. I think my nightmare it being locked in one of these pissholes. shut forever between the toilet paper holder, which is hidden in the recesses of a plastic wall, and the toilet itself with a flusher that sounds like it’s about to rocket into space. Even getting into one of these jobbies, usually located directly adjacent to where airline attendants are mixing drinks and pouring coffee, requires you to do a sort of do-si-do to open the door, that is, if the stall is Vacant, and not horrors of all horrors, Occupied, in which case you’re out of luck, particularly if the captain has just turned on the seatbelt sign. But let’s be positive. Let’s say you do squeeze inside one of these inside outhouses, first testing the air for any strange odors as you step inside. And there definitely will be suspect odors. But this part is not greatly unexpected, something you’ve experienced before at outdoor music concerts where you’ve looked away at the mess inside a port-a-potty and went about your business, quickly. However, being locked in a space as big as a thimble, it’s not as easy. Urinating inside one of these toilets is reminiscent of riding a New York City subway car, weaving back and forth holding onto a hanging strap, as you are forced to readjust your aim into the toilet bowl, which is when you see a puddle of wet below your feet, and since it is not raining and there is never any weather inside an airplane toilet, you surmise that others, quite like yourself, have missed the target, which is when you seek the toilet paper, also hidden behind the recesses of a wall, and because it is the proper thing to do, wash your hands with some squiggle of foam that passes for soap, and get the hell out of there pronto, and back to your seat.
Good news I didn’t stay stuck in the bathroom.
I was on my way to Laramie, Wyoming for my daughter’s graduation. She picked me up at the airport in Denver and we drove several hours, at times, passing the Overland Trail that I remembered from my U.S. history classes. It was the highway of the 19th century, a stagecoach and wagon trail established by Ben Holladay on orders from the U.S. Post service in 1861. Originally from Kentucky, Holladay was given the Overland Trail contract after acquiring the Pony Express and creating a successful service. He sold out to Wells Fargo Express for 1.5 million (28 million in today’s dollars), which explains why Wells Fargo has a stagecoach as its logo (more on logos later).
The skies were vast, clouds in marvelous configurations, roiling over the Rockies. The most common tree growing here is the quaking aspen. Mornings are sunny (mid May), although there still were patches of snow on the ground. I ordered coffee at the Turtle Rock Coffee and Café across from the university where people congratulated each other about the mild weather (58 degrees) wearing shorts and sandals. (It can dip below zero during the winter).
Graduation was only a day away. The Laramie Hilton was charging $400 a night. Motels were booked. Luckily, I was able to sleep in my daughter’s bed while she took to the floor on an air mattress. It was hard to get a reservation at any major restaurant. Parents and families crowded into this college town from all directions, 109 miles from Boulder, Colorado. But unlike Boulder, in Laramie there is no mall filled with high-end designer stores. Walmart is the single big box store. I loved discovering, NU2U, a resale shop, stocked with two floors of vintage and boots, boots, boots! Or you can stop at the Brown and Gold Outlet (Laramie’s colors) to shop cowboy apparel, everything embellished with the bucking horse, which is a federally and state registered trademark. The logo is omnipresent appearing outside banks, restaurants, public buildings, license plates, recycling bins, streets signs and license plates. You get the idea. Just about everywhere, the figure of a man (named Cowboy Joe) on a bucking horse.
According to the university’s magazine, a bucking horse image first surfaced on Wyoming National Guard equipment in France during World War I. It’s believed that this famous bucking horse owes its roots to a 1903 photo of the bronco Steamboat ridden by cowboy Guy Holt at the Albany County Fair. The photo was snapped by non-other than the university’s then president, B.C. Buffum, (an unfortunate name for a college president).
But the real show at the stadium was on the floor, graduates wearing sashes, representative of different departments, and braids, mortar board hats, many of which had been decorated by graduates with sequins and flowers, others with squiggly writing and one appearing several times on the Megaton saying “three degrees,” (which had nothing to do with the temperature). Cowboy Joe was there to shake hands with graduates after they’d been “hooded,” diplomas in hand. Roses and leis were available for purchase at the front table for $25 or $50 bunch, each distinguished by the color of its cellophane wrapper.
And there was my daughter. I was so proud and presented her with a bouquet of flowers, hardly bothered by the airplane bathroom on the return trip.