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How a Bahamian Taxi Driver Helped Me Forget the Problems of the World
An Afternoon with Rochelle Brought Back Joy
My wife and I wanted to escape the madness of America for an extended weekend in the Bahamas. Carol needed a break from her demanding job more than I did. I was still in the 24/7 mode of coming up with the next story. We left home around 4:30 AM on a Friday and drove 80 miles to Jacksonville International Airport (FL) to begin the next leg of our journey.
We arrived in plenty of time and boarded an American Airlines flight bound for Miami, where we were to change to another American flight to Nassau, Bahamas. All the passengers were seated in Jacksonville, and then we sat for an unusually long time until the pilot announced they had to reset a piece of equipment to make a light go off. So far, the world's problems weren’t going away; I was immediately reminded of the number of crashes plaguing the industry. We sat for almost an hour until the captain announced the issue was cleared and we would soon depart. We sat another 15 minutes until we backed away from the terminal and got in line for takeoff.
The next issue on the horizon was whether we’d make our connecting flight. We sat in Row 33 of a 33-row plane and would be among the last to deplane. A flight attendant made an announcement asking all…
