Our youngest daughter, Rose, is marrying a wonderful guy- Temidayo Itabiyi - on April 10th, which has changed from a long time to wait to three days away in the blink of an eye. Since she and Temi live in Houston, and my wife and I live in Maine, we flew down to Texas early to spend as much time on wedding prep as possible. Our flight was out of Portland, Maine on Friday evening (Good Friday, 2026) after a half day of school. We went from celebrating the most solemn day on the Christian calendar (a special service for another blog) to waiting in the Portland Jetport for our first flight. While the trip was planned out well, and we expected it to go smoothly since the recent TSA work-without-pay fiasco has been resolved, it went even better than expected. It was serendipitous; something rarely said about air travel.
The first pleasant surprise was when we checked our one suitcase. A very friendly attendant named Eric (more on him later) weighed our bag, that I knew HAD TO BE over the maximum weight of fifty pounds - thus requiring additional payment - checked in at a hefty but acceptable 48.5 pounds.
Eric was, as Sue says, our first airport angel. When he saw our last name was Hagerstrom, he asked if it was a Swedish name, which it is. He then introduced himself as Eric Hendstrom. Almost cousins! We asked him if we would need check our larger carry-on. While this was something we really didn't want to do, since it contained all of our wedding clothes., he said it was likely we would be asked to check it at the gate. But, if we 'need assistance boarding early' we would probably get to keep it with us. Clearly our newfound Scandinavian cousin was telegraphing a way to get our way. After this pleasant and positive interaction, we headed to our gate.
After waiting for a couple hours - we knew we'd be having to kill time - our new cousin Eric arrives at the desk at our gate. Then he pages us to come to the desk. As it turned out, our flight out of Chicago was running very late, and he told us we were being rerouted through Washington instead. And this would get us to Houston an hour earlier than our original plans would have gotten us there. At the same time, we asked for wheelchair assistance for Sue when we got to DC's Reagan Airport, which allowed us to board the first flight early. We just had to walk one gate over and everything was looking up.
Our flight to DC was cramped, but uneventful, and the wheelchair assist was waiting for us when we arrived. Now, I need to pause and explain that Sue was in a severe car accident about 30 years ago, and her right leg has never been the same. Although completely ambulatory, her walking is slow, and the chair allowed us to make it to our next gate with 15 minutes to spare. This time, the flight was only perhaps 2/3 full, so again we were able to keep our carry-on with us and avoid worrying about the possibility of losing our wedding attire.
The one thing that was NOT able to happen on our trip through the Washington airport was getting a meal. While everything was looking up, we were definitely hungry. We had noticed in the information in the seat back in front of us that American Airlines had wraps available for purchase, but when we asked the attendant about this, he told us this was only on larger flights. Then he did something that made him our second airport angel of the trip. He told us that there were leftover first class meals, and he could give us each one free of charge! While the rest of coach was eating their tiny bag of pretzels and drinking their half can of soda, we had roasted chicken with sweet potatoes and orza and a salad with champagne-vinegrette dressing!
Rose and Naomi - who had traveled down earlier in the week to spend time with her younger sister - met us at Houston's George Bush airport, and drove us to Rose's apartment, where the rest of the adventure would continue in the morning.