Previous | Next :: Flying over Manhattan : Continental Flight 632 : NYC | May 9, 2010, 12:53 am

Well, sometimes you need an angel ...... seriously..... and one is delivered in the form of Greg Yates ..... I was in the middle of nowhere having left myself just nowhere near enough time to fix the situation...... had to drop the rental car at a location 10 miles from the airport...... a location that had no taxis no bus no nothing..... and was closed....... I saw in a blinding moment of hope Airline Services written on the side of a big white van..... I ran over to it and banged on the side as it was driving away....... it stopped and it turns out to be Greg driving..... He looked at me as if I was slightly mad....... "Are you goin to the Airport? Can I give you some cash and hitch a ride?" I said clearly looking and sounding more than a touch desperate.... he said I'll give you a ride no need for money..... just like that. He wasn't, it turned out, even going to the airport but diverted himself a good 9 or 10 miles to help me out......

Funnily enough it turned out he had previously been a photographer.... now he is the regional manager with Integrated Airline Services...... anyone who is a friend of Greg or doing business with him must already know what a fine bloke he is....... like I say I met him completely by chance..... but this was clear to me even in a short chance meeting ..... and he completely saved my bacon....... with no fuss or bother..... just elected to help out when asked........ he totally refused any payment dropped me at the Continental curbside check in at Houston's International Airport with seconds to spare.

He said in our ride to the airport I must have helped the odd person on my travels...... Giving them a lift when they needed it or the like..... So its nice to be the recipient sometimes too....... I am sure I am more often the beneficiary of generous behavior by others than the person offering it ..... but i told Greg I had once.... ages back... picked up an old Palestinian man in the early evening..... I was driving from Gaza to Jerusalem across the West Bank...... it was the end of an extremely exhausting few days in Gaza....... I was tired ...... there was nothing on the road....... Suddenly we almost have a head on collision with an on coming car ...... I swerve back to the right hand side of the road....... I had been driving on the left !!!!!!...... like a total idiot... (cos thats what we do in Britain)....... I realized I had been doing that for at least ten minutes..... I turned to my passenger to apologize for my inexcusable driving....... As I do so I am suddenly aware he must have known I was driving on the wrong side of the road for sometime ..... but had said nothing........ When I quizzed him about this it became clear he was too polite to point it out......... I made him promise not to be so polite to me in the future........ hehehehe.......... Greg was a much safer driver than that..... and i have the feeling he has helped a hugely greater number of people than me..... or indeed a lot more than most people have helped ...... :-))

I wrote this bit above on the flight from Texas........ but by the time I was shooting this image out of the window as we were approaching LaGaurgia Airport NYC...... the wiseness of running like mad for this particular flight seemed to be evaporating.......... it was really hard to keep the camera near my eye due to the turbulence....... The plane was swinging and bouncing like crazy....... If you look closely in this image you see the wind on the water on the Hudson and East River........... Coming in to land was as rough as I can remember for ages more of a smack down than a touch down...... :-/ :-):-))

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXX

http://www.jezblog.com