'Now boarding all rows for flight 666'

Ethan Smith, Editor

Ah, the joys of holiday travel.

Dec. 26 started off well enough. Had a great time with the fam over Christmas, got on my flight out of Dulles airport and swooped into Minneapolis, half-way home to Missoula airport. With a little luck I'd be home in time for the last Monday Night Football game on ABC.

Priorities, priorities.

It was a nice day in Minneapolis as we all got in line to board the little Lear-looking jet for the two-hour flight home. Smug in my sense of holiday spirit, I waited until everyone got in line, and then fell in behind at the end, nodding politely to the little girl with her new pink unicorn backpack. (Oh, that I could get so much happiness from a pink, $5 backpack.)

Hand the ticket lady my boarding pass, and we're all set.

All of the sudden, a red light started blinking on my pass as she waved it under the scanner. Oh no, this isn't good. Red lights blinking doesn't bode well for today's air traveler.

Turns out there wasn't anything wrong with my boarding pass.

"Um, sir, we have what we call a weight problem…."

"Yeah, join the club, and thanks for noticing. It's the holiday season and all…."

"No, you don't understand. The plane is over-weighted. We are only allowed to put 42 passengers on."

"Let me guess, I'm number 43."

"Yes, I'm afraid so. See, we have a larger amount of luggage and we have weight limits on these smaller planes."

"Oh God, please don't do this to me. Seriously. You can't just put one more passenger on?"

"No. In fact we're probably going to have to ask someone to get off."

Turns out with the smaller planes, they count luggage bags, and multiply by an average weight. Once that hits a certain limit, which it did Monday with everyone's holiday gifts and those four extra sweaters you got from Grandma, they start counting passengers. Each passenger represents X pounds, each bag represents Y pounds, and you multiply and then add the two together, and that's the weight limit.

(It actually reached the point where the baggage handler confessed to the airline rep that the pilot had told him he could probably burn an extra 100 pounds of fuel taxiing on the runway. I was so mad at that point I didn't realize until later that they were so serious about not being able to take off safely that the pilot would run the engines a little higher on the runway just to get rid of a few extra gallons of fuel.)

Let's just say I got a little ticked off. They didn't overbook the flight. In fact, they were going to leave me in Minneapolis with three or four empty seats! And that's when I got upset. Here I was, in the Christmas spirit, letting everyone board before me, waiting at the end of the line, and what good did it do me? For my generosity, I get the luxury of waiting in the airport for another four hours for the next flight. It wasn't fair.

Merry Christmas.

I wouldn't say I was obnoxious about it, but at one point the airline rep had to remind me that there were families sitting nearby at the gate I was stuck at.

Well, lesson learned, I thought as I sat there stewing in my own anger. Next time, Ethan, old buddy old pal, just push your way to the front of the line. Elderly woman escorting two little kids? Too bad. I'm going to the front of the line. After all, that's the lesson we've learned today, right? To heck with the holiday spirit. If I'd gone to the head of the line, I wouldn't have been in this mess.

So, four hours later I got on the 9:30 flight, which would put me in Polson about 1 a.m., by my calculations. No Monday Night Football. No good night's rest. At least my bag would be waiting for me in Missoula.

We were almost home, and at that point I'd simmered down enough. But the airline gods weren't done with me yet

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We're about 60 miles from Missoula, and there's some heavy fog. We are going to try to land, but there's a chance we will have to reroute to Great Falls if we can't. It's really foggy out there."

You've gotta be kidding me. Why is this happening to me? Great Falls? Don't they understand I have a paper to put out on Tuesday? Oh sure, it's nice for Joe Schmo sitting across the aisle, who might miss a sales presentation or a company meeting, but what am I going to do? I've got 3,000 subscribers and another 2,500 off-the-rack buyers who are waiting for their papers. This was just too much.

We began our descent into the Missoula area a few minutes later, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the landing gear being released. And then something happened that I have never witnessed on a flight.

Ever.

They turned the lights on on the emergency exit rows in preparation for landing.

Most of the other passengers were asleep, it being midnight and all, and they apparently had better things to do than just sit there stewing in their own anger like me, but all the sudden, I sat up. I looked out the window, and realized they'd turned on all the outside illumination lights — and I still could barely see the wing.

I half expected that little demon creature from The Twilight Zone: The Movie, to appear in the window and start shredding the wing up. Instead, I just sat there and gripped my seat arm, really, really tightly.

It became apparent that the pilots were going to attempt basically an instruments-only landing. I say this only because we could catch an occasional glimpse of the city below in a break in the cloud cover, but it was obvious that fog had completely settled over Missoula. You couldn't see a thing.

You gotta figure on a big jet the altimeters were close to within 10 feet or so. Which is great, but it's the last 10 feet you really have to worry about. At least that was what I was thinking. Still, I had to have faith in the pilots and trust them to do their job. At this point, I was really hoping to land in Missoula, but nobody would have blamed them if they'd gone to Great Falls.

Whomp! We touched down on the runway with a harder-than-normal landing, indicating the pilots were right about their judgment … within three feet or so. While other passengers looked at each other with a little alarm on their face, I released my death grip on the seat arm and breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost home.

I went into the terminal looking for my bag, which should have arrived four hours ahead of me, but alas, there was no bag. I went into the airport security office to ask them what I should do.

"I should have been on the 5:30 flight, but they had too much weight, so I got stuck on this one. I was at the end of the line, and because I let other people go in front of me, I get stuck in Minneapolis for four hours. Can you believe that? Anyway, my bag was on that flight and it should have been waiting here. Have you guys seen it?"

"The 5:30 flight? That got canceled," the security guard said.

"No it didn't. I watched it take off from Minneapolis. I was supposed to be on that flight and home four hours ago," I said, reiterating what a victim of circumstances I was.

"Yeah, it took off. It got all the way to Billings before they turned back and went to Minneapolis. The pilots on those 'Barbie jets' don't have as much experience, so they decided not to risk it with the bad weather. They went all the way back to Minneapolis."

Long pause.

"You mean…."

"Yeah, you're the only one on that flight that made it to Missoula. They've had to reroute a flight from Seattle to Kalispell, too. Those people are being bused down here. They won't make it here until about 4:30 this morning. You should consider yourself lucky. Yours was the only flight that was able to land at Missoula. It's all fogged in."

As I was filling out a luggage claim form to have my bag delivered to Polson, the baggage handler told me they couldn't even see our plane until it was on the runway.

"We have no idea how you all made it here. Everyone else was rerouted. It's amazing that they landed here. But, we're glad everyone made it."

And then it hit me. I realized what a jerk I'd been, making a fuss at the Minneapolis staff. I was getting so bent out of shape at the little things that were out of my control, and out of the airline's control — the weight limit, the fog, all of it. They were just trying to look out for the safety of their passengers. I gave those poor Minneapolis people so much heck they gave me a free roundtrip ticket for my trouble. And here I was, the only one to make it home. I felt like the north end of a southbound horse. I was just looking for an excuse to get all worked up, and as it turns out, I was the luckiest one of the whole lot.

As I was leaving the Missoula airport, the security guard stopped me.

"Hey, what's that saying?" he said, snapping his fingers quickly, the way people do when they are trying to remember something on the tip of their tongue.

"The first … The first …"

And I knew it immediately. After all those years in Sunday school, I remembered it like my own birthday.

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first," I said as I walked out the door, smiling.

"Hey man, that's you," the security guard said with a grin. "That's you."

I crawled into bed at about 2:30 a.m., thankful to be home safe and sound instead of in some hotel room in Great Falls, Minneapolis, or Lord knows where else, and I drifted off to sleep with the lines of the letter of apology I was going to write to the Minneapolis crew going through my head.

What were the top 10 news categories?

Paul Fugleberg

Year 2005 was an eventful one for Lake County folks — one filled with the highs and lows of life. So, what were the top 10 local news stories on your list? Each person has his or her own list, which can lead to lively discussions at coffee break time, over the dinner table, at social gatherings, even on street corners.

For whatever they're worth, here is my list of the top 10 categories:

1. The character and heart of a community. This encompasses such things as helping neighbors in need through countless events like benefit dinners and pancake breakfasts; scholarship programs; service club youth programs; organizations like Big Brothers and Big Sisters and Boys and Girls Clubs; various community foundations; Relay for Life, Share the Spirit, Caring Community, CASA, Cheerful Heart, P.E.O., Marine Corps League and other veterans groups; individuals who donate money, time and effort in volunteer work in response to emergencies including hurricanes and tsunamis; sending care packages to soldiers overseas; After School programs; in-school mentoring programs; supporting development of a skate park and community swimming pool; DOVES and Safe Harbour, and countless other groups and projects. It would take a full newspaper page of very small type to list them all.

Their caring hearts reflect the character of the community and its people.

2. Controversies. Most prominent are the Wal-Mart proposal to build a new superstore in Polson; development of a Density Map; Kootenai Lodge subdivision; Cougar Ridge subdivision. All evoked heated and sometimes emotional reactions.

3. Crime. There were murders, drug busts and concern over the growing threat of methamphetamines; domestic violence; DUI incidents; etc.

4. Iraqi war. Kane Funke, killed in Iraq, was laid to rest in Lakeview cemetery last year. Several soldiers were honored on their return from Iraq this year.

5. Politics. The Montana Supreme Court decided the HD 12 recount issue in favor of Jeanne Windham. Constitutional candidate Rick Jore was ordered to pay legal fees, which he refused to do, and action was take to force collection. The Polson City Council and the Tribal Council have new members after defeating incumbents.

6. Rural Fire District levy failure. Big Arm fire engine has been deactivated and possible closure of the Big Arm fire station was discussed, as were charges that would be imposed on fire responses. Fire insurance increases were also said to be likely in the rural district.

7. Athletics. Ronan cross country team and Polson girls' golf team brought home state Class A championship trophies.

8. Teachers' contracts. Teachers in St. Ignatius and Polson, after working without a contract for over a year, finally reached agreement with school boards to obtain new contracts.

9. Growth. Lake County's continued growth was reflected in housing starts, subdivision developments, highway construction projects — especially at the intersection of Highways 93 and 35 and the approach to Polson, and the Jocko bridge near Arlee; Polson and Ronan medical facilities adding doctors and new services.

10. Spring and Fall Mack Attack fish derbies put a needed dent in lake trout populations. Flathead Nessie reappears after a three to four-year absence.