No Frills

So, I decided to make a last minute trip to Los Angeles.  My beloved Denver Nuggets were in the NBA Finals with the Lakers.  Why the Nuggets you ask?  Here’s why.   Plus, my son Josh and daughter in law Shelby are staying there for about a month.  So, that made the decision easy.  I wouldn’t need a hotel and I managed to get a ticket to the game.  However, the flight was another issue.  Given, that it was the last minute, flights were very high.  So, I might the decision to use one of the low-cost, no-frills airlines - Spirit.  I was able to get a reasonable price out of Louisville.  So, I booked my ticket.

This difference with these type of airlines is everything costs extra.  It costs for both checked and carryon luggage.  You can bring one personal item – a small bag of purse but they are very strict that the size is below their requirement.  If you want to choose your seat, that costs too.  You can see how if you are not careful, you can start to approach the cost of a  full fare airline.  I went ahead and paid for a carryon (I was glad I did later) and got an aisle seat (which I prefer).  The cost was still much less than full service flights.

I headed to Louisville.  About 45 minutes in, I get an alert from Spirit that my flight was going to leave a couple of hours late.  That meant I could take a more leisurely drive.  I stopped at Clarkson church of Christ to worship that morning.  I made a planned stop at the city park in Elizabethtown.  I ate the lunch I had brought.  As I prepared to leave, I get a new alert from Spirit.  The flight wouldn’t leave til after 10:30pm now!  I called their support.  The issue was the original crew had now exceeded the number of hours they could work.  So, they had to bring in another crew.  I wasn’t going to go sit at the airport for hours.  So, I hung out at the park reading.  Then, I went to a couple of stores.  I had dinner at the Culvers there and finally went to evening services at Elizabethtown church of Christ. 

I then headed for Louisville.  I arrived at Muhammed Ali airport.  I’d never flown out of there before.  An interesting thing is just about all its parking is within walking distance of the main terminals.  It’s also about half of what it costs to park at the Nashville Airport.  I have PreCheck, but there wasn’t much of a line so we were all herded into the same line.   I got to my gate and saw it was going to be almost ELEVEN before we were to leave (on what would be a four hour flight).  Spirit had sent me a voucher to buy food.  Unfortunately (with it being Sunday and later), nothing was open.  I did have the forethought to bring snacks.  There are several areas throughout the terminal where you can sit and plug in all your devices and set up a laptop or tablet.  I did that and watched some of the Heat/Celtics game.  The new crew finally arrived and I got on. 

The seats seemed a little smaller but it wasn’t awful.  I tried to sleep a bit and managed to.  There is no in-flight entertainment or chargers.  You even have to pay if you want a snack or soda or water.  Keep that in mind.  We arrived about 1 AM. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out that late.  Since I just did carryon, I could head right out to the pickup area.  Even though it was that late, it was still bedlam.  Josh and Shelby pulled up and I threw my stuff in their car.  I got to their Air B&B and crashed out.

My return flight went much better.  One other thing you can do with Spirit is put in a bid for either what they call “The Big Front Seat” or an exit row seat.  I bid on the exit row seat and won!  The flight was on time and that exit row seat made all the difference in the world in a much more relaxing flight home.   I’m a tall guy and could easily stretch out.  I got to the airport and had an uneventful flight home.

What did I learn?  One, Louisville is another option to fly out of.  It was only about an hour further than the Nashville Airport.   Two, I might try Spirit again.  I’d sure bid on an exit row and I might not fly so late in the afternoon just in case of a delay.  It’d have to be a lot cheaper than the full fare airlines for me to do it again though.

Paul McCartney

I’ve liked the Beatles for about 35 years now, but the path to how I got there was strange. When I was a senior in high school, I started hearing some songs on the radio like Got to Get You into My Life and Come Together. They were from a movie called “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. The movie starred a diverse cast of the Bee-Gees, Peter Frampton, George Burns and Alice Cooper. I was talking about the music in Calculus class and my friend David Darnell scoffed. He said “those songs don’t compare to the original releases by the Beatles”. I was skeptical and just filed that away in my brain. The movie by the way was absolutely terrible. I thought about the Beatles again when I was watching Monday Night Football on Dec 8, 1980. Howard Cosell broke in to say John Lennon had been murdered. I knew who he was and remember being really saddened by the tragedy of it. He had this song he’d just released called “Starting Over” which I really liked. How do I remember that date you might ask? Turns out the most wonderful woman in the world celebrated her 16th birthday that day.

A couple of years later, my friend Keith “Corky” Johnson re-introduced me to the Beatles. He had most of their albums which he loaned to me. When I listened to them, I was blown away. Where had this music been all my life? I became totally obsessed with the Beatles to the point where I was obnoxious about it. It was all I talked about. I spent every spare cent I had on Beatles albums and read everything I could find about them. I got a Beatlemania trivia game (that I still have) for Christmas that my friend Rick Alvey and I used to play a lot.

I’ve calmed down about the Beatles since then. But, I still would count them as my favorite. I still scoff when somebody claims to have been as popular or talented (Garth Brooks comes to mind). I’d always hoped they would get back together just once even after John died. I thought Julian Lennon could fill in for his dad. But once George Harrison died in 2001, that dream pretty much ended. My next idea was I really wanted to see Paul McCartney in concert. The right opportunity never came along til recently. His “Out There” tour started last year and I noticed happily he would come to Nashville and Louisville. I chose Louisville because the concert was going to be on June 25th (a Thursday) which worked out better for me. Lo and behold I get an email that Paul had been ill and that concert wouldn't be held. Fortunately, the concert was rescheduled for Tuesday October 28th.

The date finally came and I took off for Louisville. I had to stay across the river in New Albany because an FFA convention pretty much taken every room in the city. I grabbed some Five Guys and headed for downtown Louisville. I got to the Yum center at 6:45 (the concert started at 8). For some reason, they didn’t open the doors til 7. Even when we got in, they didn’t let anybody take their seats til about 7:30. I guess they were trying to convince you to buy stuff. It worked on me – I bought a pretzel and an outrageously priced tour shirt. Finally, I got in to my seat. I had purchased a floor seat and the view looked like it was going to be great.

They were still seating people at 8. The concert finally started at about 8:40. Paul took to the stage and started with “Eight Days a Week”. He played a lot of Beatles songs including my favorite “The Long and Winding Road”. He sang “Something” in a tribute to his old bandmate George Harrison (another favorite of mine). He alternated between bass guitar, guitar and piano. I had to stand most of the time but I didn’t mind at all. He put on a great show. He even got in a reference to Louisville and Kentucky by talking about the time the Beatles met Muhammad Ali in Miami right before he fought Sonny Liston. He played for over two and a half hours. He came out to his first encore with his band and him carrying British, US and Kentucky flags. I could tell his voice was straining a bit when he sang Helter Skelter in his first encore but he still did well. He finished a three hour concert with a second encore singing “Yesterday” and ending with the Abbey Road “Golden Slumbers” finish. I’ll just simply say what I said on Facebook that night “The Paul McCartney concert was AWESOME!!”.

He actually said “We’ll see you next time”. I cannot imagine he’ll tour again. He did great this time – a three hour concert for a 72 year man is amazing to me. I’ve knocked this item off my bucket list. But if he tours again, I’ll be there.