And the prize goes to …

Monroe.

The most patriotic costume prize, that is. It all started Tuesday night with a series of group text messages among the Lubbock clan. Such things as who’s buying what fireworks, when is who gathering to go to the parade? Where are we going to eat?

A few puns were kicked around. Somewhere in the middle of all this fun, somebody had the temerity to ask “Why is everyone up at this hour?” Eventually Jake suggest Ben should silence his phone so he could go to sleep, Jenni said “nighty-night,” and the messages stopped coming. I think the only consensus was that we would have lunch at Grandma’s and anyone who wanted to go swimming could.

All that happened according to schedule, except nobody went swimming. Instead, we sat on the back porch and watch Jake practice his golf swing.

And we talked about the nice job Aiden had done on the lawn and about fireworks and just exactly where the city limits are in which part of town.

Rufus and Abel (Jenni’s dogs) ran around the yard, and generally it was a good start to Independence Day.

It got better. We got a text from Heather. She won a series of first places at the church Independence Day festivities. First in the ladies watermelon eating contest. First place in the bake-off with her chocolate chip cookies. She was second in the three-legged race, and won the MVP award in co-ed tug-of-war. Dressed in white pants and white heels that once belonged to Grandma, she said she just dug those heels right in. Then the other team let go, and Heather and the bishop’s wife landed in the mud.

But the incontrovertible prize for best costume came in a photo sent from northern California. Monroe Grim, the youngest member of the family at 31 days, was all red white and blue … naturally.

From Sacramento Saturday, we asked whether anything else could go wrong.

It did.

About an hour into our newly scheduled 3-hour layover in Denver, our flight home to Lubbock mysteriously showed up on the departure board as “Canceled.” We had been sitting at the gate, and neither one of us had heard any announcement of cancelation. We confirmed with a gate agent that the flight had been canceled, and she pointed a finger across the B Concourse to the “Customer Service Center,” telling us that we would have to “see them” to find out what we could do.

The way Concourse B at Denver International Airport is laid out, a broad set of people movers runs down the center of the concourse separating the even numbered gates from the odd numbered. Thus we were required to hike down to the end of the people mover, about 60 yards, traverse the concourse, and then march back up another 50 yards to cross over from Gate 61 to “Customer Service” only about 35 feet as the crow flies.

Already a healthy line had formed. I hustled to get a place in line. At first, the two of us helped the woman ahead of us, traveling alone with two small children. One, a toddler, was asleep in a stroller. The other was boy 3-4 years old, obviously fatigued and hanging on his mother. She made some phone calls, and eventually left the line.

In the meantime, Grandma took her baggage over to a lounge area and sat while I stood in line and began calling United Reservations. United informed us that the next flight they could get us on was at noon the next day. I explained that we had already faced more than 50 hours of cancellations and delays this week and that we would be happy to fly back to Lubbock on Southwest, who has several flights a day out of the same terminal and has excellent on-time ratings. We asked for a rebooking on Southwest or a voucher for the same.

Silence for a few seconds, then “I cannot do that.”

“Then we need hotel, ground transportation, and meal vouchers. This was not a weather event.”

“I can book you on tomorrow’s flight. You’ll have to see Customer Service for vouchers.”

So there we stood. We had started 12 hours earlier in Arcata, and now we stood something more than 400 miles away from our destination, exhausted, nurturing low-grade fevers, and facing yet one more rescheduling, several more hours in “Customer Service” lines, another night in a cheap motel, inability to keep Sunday church appointments. If we had not been through such a physical and emotional wringer already, we would have rented a car and driven home.

So Grandma and I took turns standing in line while the other rested – we were that wasted from the totality of this experience. While we were in line, I continued making arrangements for Sunday’s church activities through telephone and text communications.

Somewhere about 7:30 p.m. we had vouchers for a cheap motel, for two meals each, and instructions on how and where to catch the motel shuttle.

But the ordeal was not over.

We waited some time at Island 3 (hotel shuttles) outside door 506, and did not see a shuttle. I called the motel and confirmed that the shuttle had the motel name on it and stopped where we were waiting. Finally it did come, about 7:50 p.m., and the next phase of the ordeal began. There were about six of us waiting for the shuttle, which had only two seats left. An older woman had tried to get on, and finally stepped down. The driver asked “what is the matter, do you need help?” She answered that there were no more seats. Someone in the van announced there were two seats. Three young (twenties) men in the group wanting to get on, immediately sprang into action, pushing the woman aside, taking the two seats, and the third one saying “I’m game for it” and apparently sitting on the floor.

As the driver returned our luggage, he said with an encouraging tone, “I will be back in only 20 minutes.”

I replied, “isn’t it 20 minutes each way?”

“Well, yes. But I will be back.”

So off the van went, and sure enough in about 45 minutes returned. The driver remembered us, and said, as if he were paraphrasing MacArthur, “I came back.”

At about 9 p.m. we were checked in. We had signed up for a 9 a.m. shuttle back to the airport. We washed up a little, plugged in our phones and computers, and got ready for the next day as we watched news on TV. We both wanted sleep, and settled in as the news ended, and we began watching a Bette Davis movie already in progress. We saw enough of the movie to confirm who was the murderer and which twin sister was who before we fell asleep, relaxed only in that we knew we did not have to rush in the morning.

But the ordeal was not over.

At 7:20 mountain time, I got a call on my cell phone from our home burglar alarm people. They said one of the glass break sensors had gone off, and they wanted to know if they should call police. I did some quick mental arithmetic about time differences and the schedules of our children in Lubbock (who all have alarm codes), and I said yes. Ben was already at work. I talked to Jake; he was not at the house. I talked to Jenni; she was at home. She volunteered to go over to the house. Shortly thereafter I got a text saying Andrea was on her way to the house too.

All seemed to be in order at the house.

Zombie-like we headed off to the airport a few minutes before 9. What we now faced was the security ordeal. Remember, earlier in our journey, Nancy’s wallet was stolen in San Francisco. She had absolutely no other ID. We started the security gauntlet a few minutes past 9. Here we had a pleasant surprise.

TSA pulled us aside, and we waited until “Chris” was available to address the extraordinary security risk presented by this five foot, 110-pound, silver haired granny with no ID. Chris, it turns out was a very pleasant man in his late forties, who took us over to an interview table in full view (but not easy hearing) of everyone else going through security. He sat Grandma Nancy across from himself at this stainless steel table, then offered me a chair to sit nearby. Still standing, he started asking a series of questions we had heard before, about credit cards, prescription bottles – ANY thing with your name on it. Nancy interrupted, saying “I have nothing; this is our third time going through this. All I have is this police report.”

Chris said in a kindly and sympathetic way, “so you have nothing. You know the routine. Okay, let’s get started,” and he handed her a form she had to fill out, giving TSA her basic identity information, and giving them permission to run checks on her. When Nancy had filled out the basic info, Chris got on the phone with someone tied into public information databases. While he was on the phone, he began relaying questions to her, which she had to answer. The only question I heard details on was about her car. She had a car registered in her name. What year was it, what make and model. At this point, I realized  the chair Chris had given me was HIS chair, as he knelt across the table from his interviewee.

Wow! What a photo-op! A fully armed airport security dude on his knees before Granny! Maybe not a good idea to pull my camera out at that moment.

After Nancy passed the gauntlet of questions, he escorted us over to the middle of security, retrieved a female TSA officer, and introduced us. He called us his “best friends” and told the new officer he wanted her to see to it that we did not get too far separated.

Well, Nancy went through a very thorough pat down and carry-on check. In the end, we were almost exactly an hour in security. We had allotted more time than that.

So now we could use the meal vouchers United had given us, and we ate a healthy brunch. The plane boarded on time, the final flight was uneventful. I cannot remember ever thinking more than I did as we came into Lubbock Sunday afternoon how beautiful the brown and read earth of West Texas appeared.