A Lift at MSP

You know how it is. You have to get up at some unearthly hour, like 3:45 AM, and so you don't sleep for fear you won't wake up and you'll miss your 5:45 flight home from Canada.

That was my story last Saturday night.

But I made the flight, got to Minneapolis/St Paul airport, walked around for half an hour or so, found a quiet spot, comfortable chair, pulled out my book, and started to read. Of course, I fell asleep, head down, quite like an old person. But that's okay. I'm very tired, traveling alone, no one knows me. And so on.

Suddenly I hear, "Mrs. Schiess?"

What? Is it a voice from heaven? From dream? From some official someone?

Perhaps you can imagine what went through my head as I became aware of this voice calling my name in a place where no one knows me and I'm asleep--and now embarrassed to be asleep--and I open my eyes wondering what on earth has happened.

I look.

He says again, "Mrs. Schiess."

Now I am awake, able to focus, and see the face is one I recognize. I say, "You're Kip."

And it's true. He is Kip, a former student of mine, about 11 years ago, he says. We chat a few moments, then he says, "We'll probably be on the same plane." That turns out to be true, and we sit across the aisle from each other, purely by chance.

He is a parole officer, he tells me, and he also fetches troubled kids and takes them to a wilderness camp. He's got a Latino kid from New York with him, heading to Gooding, and the kid, says Kip, is worried as we approach Boise because everything looks so brown and desolate. I say something clever, like what does he expect when he hears the word wilderness.

Kip tells me he loves his work. He also tells me he is always glad to see me, which, I have figured out, is twice in 11 years. It's nice to hear.

I tell him he's not as slender as he used to be, you know, he's grown up, filled out. He says, "Guess I'll have to thin up for the next time." I say, "Yeah, me too."