My dad got on a flight in Portland, OR this morning. His final destination is Innsbruck, Austria, and he should get there around 10:30 am tomorrow morning. Conveniently, he booked his flight to stop over in Philly. His layover this time around was only three hours, but he’ll be spending a full weekend with me on his way back home from the Subud Congress.

Tonight we had planned that I would meet him at the airport during his layover, bring him dinner and a couple of books and generally make the time go faster. He was supposed to call me when his flight landed at 5:10 pm. I started calling his cell phone at 5:15 and called him about seven times from 5:15 until 5:45. He had gotten on the flight in Portland with his back acting up, and I was spinning all sorts of worries in my head about how his back had gone out on the flight and he was unable to get off the plane without paramedical assistance.

At 5:55 I parked my car in the short term lot and headed into the terminal to look for him. I managed to ask the right question in front of the right person in the baggage claim area. A Frontier employee was taking reports of missing baggage and was helping the last guy in line. I interrupted really quickly and asked about my dad. The man who was reporting the missing bag had been sitting behind my dad on the flight and said that he had heard him saying that he had lost his cell phone in the Denver airport. It’s a classic move for my father, but at least I knew that he wasn’t in an ambulance somewhere.

So I headed to the US Airways International check in terminal and started whistling the family whistle. And there he was in line. I waited while he checked in and then handed him his (as requested) a roast beef hoagie from Wawa (I am a good daughter). We sat, we ate and I watched him (with a little jealousy in my heart) walk his way to the security check point, and head for three weeks of Subud fun. Have a great trip, Dad.