I learned about a possible link between childhood vaccinations and autism here, and about how the U.S. government, after denying that such a link could exist, allegedly sold our nation’s stock of the accused vaccines (ones containing a certain mercury preservative cocktail) to the developing world, where the rate of autism is now said to be increasing.  So the conspiracy theory goes. I learned all that from a British nurse running late for an educator’s conference where she’d be speaking on autism.  She was stuck with me on a snowy Super Bowl Sunday right here in Chicago’s Midway airport.  She was Catholic and in her late sixties but had three grandkids who might like my music, she said.  I remember all that.  Or I remembered all that when I landed here a few minutes ago.

I travel too much.  I know I travel too much because I have a story or fifty for every major airport in America, stories I don’t really recall until I see the tile floor, the moving walkway surrounded by pulsating blue and purple light, or round the corner to the baggage claim or smell the food court.

Food court.  That reminds me of the time my bass player wandered off in search of coffee in Cleveland one early early morning.  The band and I stayed behind in the C concourse, keeping ourselves close to our departing gate.  We ate Einstein bagels while my road manager (Brian, at the time) worried and searched for James.  Bass players, for the record, we learned many times the hard way, are flaky – in an early stage of Alzheimer’s sort of way – prone to wandering off and forgetting what it is they’re supposed to be doing and when and why.  I rarely play with a band these days but if I do I insist the bass player wear one of those little vest things with the leash attached.  It’s traffic cone orange.  It has a bell on it.

Which reminds me – I don’t know why – of the Denver airport (it looks like the set of Fraggle Rock from the outside) where I was eating at that restaurant Dick Clark owns and I left after just a few bites because I got to witness a vomitfest like the one at the pie eating contest in that movie Stand By Me – you know the scene?  This kid threw up at the table and that made dad yark on the table and then mom hurled and, well, I left as the clean-up began.

Speaking of clean-up.  I like the potties at O Hare.  The seats are covered in plastic bag type stuff that magically rotates into the wall when used.  A new section of plastic rotates into place for the next customer.  Magical, is what that is.  Hygienic magic.  And slippery.  I remember that day well too.  Yessir, I do. I’ll likely never forget just how cold an airplane cabin can feel when one’s pants and undergarments are soaked in toilet water.  Likely never.

Nor will I depart from Detroit’s A concourse in the future without recalling the mother of two I watched (and heard) flip out on a Southwest gate agent this morning, windmilling him with a stroller while yelling “mean jerk” again and again.  Apparently you can’t check nine bags, two car seats, and a stroller for free…even if you unleash some Mom Fu on somebody.

That’s my life: Flitting across this great nation of ours learning important life lessons and collecting memories like so many frequent flier miles.  Misty water-colored memories of the way airports were last I passed through them.

One more to go.  Almost home.

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Series: Stories From The Road