FLYING WITH RESILIENCE June 26, 2026

What’s worse than one badly delayed flight to a far-off city? Two—within 48 hours. But these flights reinforced a valuable lesson.

Two weeks ago, Carolyn and I flew to Dallas-Fort Worth International to connect to a flight to Waco, Texas. We’d attend her 60th high-school reunion. Two days later, we’d fly to New York.

People plan, God laughs.

Weather at DFW diverted our plane to Oklahoma City. After refueling, we made it to DFW, but our Waco flight got canceled. We stayed calm and got lucky. A young man flying to Waco called his wife, who would drive up—two hours—to DFW. He offered us a ride. We got into our room at 4:00 am. At 10:00, we Ubered to the Waco airport to pick up our luggage and rental car. We joined Carolyn’s family for lunch (barbecue) then went to a fun reunion dinner (fajitas).

The next day, weather again played havoc with flights to and from DFW. We went through our options. The key: get to DFW. We Ubered there.

Should our flight be canceled, we booked an “insurance” room at the Hyatt Regency on the airport grounds. Sleeping in one of the terminals was not an option—if we could help it. 

Our flight to JFK was delayed again and again. We kept changing terminals—easy to do at DFW with a long walk or SkyLink, DFW’s very efficient tram. We had dinner in terminal D, which serves international flights, and where our flight would take off. Boarding time kept being pushed back. 

At 10:00 pm, we heard an announcement that was music to our ears and those of the many New Yorkers who had gone to San Antonio to see game five of the Knicks-Spurs NBA finals and were still in a celebratory mood. The gate agent said in no uncertain terms, “We have a plane. We have a crew. We will get you to New York.”

At 5:00 in the morning, we rode in a taxi crossing over the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan. The eastern sky began to light up. After five hours sleep, we showered and took a short subway ride from Columbus Circle to the Upper West Side for lunch with an actor with whom Carolyn shot a movie in March.

We started catching up on our sleep and had a great time. My sister Kay spent Friday with us, staying at the same hotel. We went to lunch, rested, had dinner a block away at the Redeye Grill and strolled to the Broadway Theater to see the musical, “The Great Gatsby.” After breakfast Saturday, a car took us out to Kay’s house on Long Island.

Our flight back to San Francisco on Tuesday? Uneventful. More, a pleasure. Flying business class can make that happen.

That valuable lesson? Life requires a healthy measure of resilience. The best of plans can go awry. Staying calm, looking at your options, making reasoned decisions and “going with the flow” can ease the pain.

Maybe taking things as they come is a ’60s thing. I should know. I lived through the ’60s. In two weeks I’ll be 82. I’ve experienced my share of life’s unexpected wrinkles. I expect a few more.

Next week: More about the resilience required in another, very critical, context.

Enjoy a great read about America’s 20th-century flirtation with authoritarianism with my novel RIDE THE TYGER. Order from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, iuniverse.com, or your favorite bookstore.