Planes Trains and Automobiles

Planes Trains and Automobiles

I miss John Candy. He died 28 years ago at an age that was way too young (43). He was a wonderful comedic actor who I, as a big man my whole life, found it easy to relate to. Other, less than svelte actors who died way too young included John Belushi (age 33) and Chris Farley (also age 33). The other big male actor I can relate to is John Goodman (currently 70 years old) and he is a good fit for my personal image, especially when he plays people like Dan in Roseanne, The Babe, Fred Flintstone, Walter in the Big Lebowski, Mighty Mack in The Blues Brothers, and Sulli in Monsters Inc,. among many others. But it was John Candy as Uncle Buck, the guard at Wallyworld, Barf in Spaceballs, or, my personal favorite, and most sympathetic road warrior, Del Griffith, who makes me smile the most. I love roadtrips and there is no greater roadtrip movie than Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

My love for roadtrips must stem from a combination of my natural and presumably primordial wanderlust. I have said before that men are either pioneers or settlers. By the way, I do not want to be so gender-centric, but its just that I feel confident in speaking of what I suspect happens inside men’s heads where I am completely at a loss about what goes on inside most women’s heads (sounds like a set-up for a joke, but it is actually a bit of gender humility on my part). Back to the scary stuff inside men’s heads, I recognize that I am probably in the minority of men in how I think since I am the exact opposite of the “strong silent type” that has become our way of describing the Marlboro Man that we think of as the manly American male. My size gives me some natural strength, to be sure, but I have never had much time or inclination for pumping iron, so I have epitomized the opposite of being “ripped” that women admire so much. I think I actually have pretty strong abdominal muscles, but no one has ever come close to likening my belly to a six-pack. I have always believed in exercising my mind like I do through writing every day, but exercising my body is something I do only occasionally when I sense that I need to do it to stay reasonably mobile. That’s somewhat contrary to my life spent being a fairly active and fairly athletic person who has done many of the activities (skiing, jogging, ball-playing, bicycling, racquet sports, etc.) that generally induce working out. Anyway, silence and strength are not my things.

Roadtrips are less about exercise (unless you are traveling to places to take hikes or something, like my youngest son, Thomas, does) and more about living inside your head. I like being inside my head for some reason, so I get lots of that while driving. I also like being on the move, seeing places less familiar than home. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly becoming more and more of a homebody as I age, but if anyone suggests a roadtrip, I am in immediately. And when I say roadtrip, I am talking about both sitting in a car and hitting the road like John Candy and Steve Martin did back in 1987, and going more far afield to any corner of the earth that makes itself available. I do have my limits and I do think and worry about how much discomfort will be involved if I go somewhere exceedingly hot, humid or involving great amounts of physical exertion. I am not sure whether this great wanderlust I feel would have been so prominent in the days where one had to get from here to there by walking rather than riding, but with vehicular transportation, my wanderlust is given flight, so to speak.

For some strange reason, I tend to want to go where others fear to tread. That may be because I am big and don’t think harm will come to me, but we all know that is illogical. I can even make a case that the bigger you are the harder you fall and the bigger you are the more there is bound to be a little guy out there just waiting to take you down on the notion that little guys gotta prove to themselves and the world that their being little does not mean that they aren’t tough and even superior. Big guys have much less of that need probably because they get that benefit of the doubt much more often than they probably deserve. One of the great comedic moments in any movie is when the big guy jumps up on the chair afraid of the little mouse. I’m not sure that’s me, but I certainly get a lot more attribution of toughness than my natural inclinations deserve. But in any case, it may just be my lack of a prudence filter, but I tend to go forth into wild territory with a devil may care approach.

Just the other day I had to call MedJet Assist, the medical evacuation service that I am required to use for my international motorcycle trips. I have never had occasion to use medical evacuation services and have never even known anyone who has used them, but I can imagine a day when I might need them. Since I have to have them to exercise my motorcycling wanderlust, I have the service and it is not just limited to motorcycle trips, but any foreign travel I may take. As we plan our Egypt/Jordan trip for next February with Mike & Melisa, the tour people have warned us that in the era of COVID, the countries we are going to insist that visitors have adequate medical insurance coverage to insure that they will not burden those countries with unwanted medical costs. I think that is mostly about the tour companies looking for another revenue source (trip and travel insurance), but I find it a good place to put my MedJet Assist service to added use. It just so happens that I am up for a three year renewal of the service, so I called them to do just that. When I did, I learned two interesting things.

To begin with, I learned that Egypt is rated a #3 by the U.S. Department of State as far as travel risk goes. Fundamentally, that system is a 1-4 rating with a 4 being a “Do Not Travel” and a 1 being “Exercise Normal Precautions”. A 2 is “Exercise Increased Caution” and a 3 is “Reconsider travel”. You have to admire the person who came up with those word descriptions. There will be no one else to blame if something happens to you under any of the four ratings, but I particularly like the #3 description. It does not tell you to not go, but it gives you that little niggle that you probably ought to rethink your decision-making. That may work for a settler, but for a pioneer that is a red flag to a bull. I’m going and damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.

The other piece of news that was actually more disconcerting from MedJet Assist is that you cannot automatically renew your subscription if you are 74 or older. What? This is a for-profit company that wants as much business as they can get and no demographic is more valuable than us old guys, right? But even these commercial beasts at MedJet Assist are not sure they want the responsibility of having to go fetch your sorry ass from some silly, risky spot in the world if you are simply too old to have been going there in the first place.

Today we are hunkering down in the rain in our hotel room, watching TV. Kim isn’t feeling well (stomach) and I am only feeling so-so (also stomach), so I don’t know why I am talking about us being pioneers when what we really want to be doing is settle down very near a bathroom until we feel better. Good thing we have a day until we have to spend a day in an automobile and a few more days until we have to get on a plane…and thank God there are no trains in our immediate future. Other than that, we can’t wait to get going…..