Oh so many years ago I was a banquet speaker for an educational association at the then Pantland Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Later it was called The Amway Grand. I drove there OK and it was snowing so I tossed a snow shovel in the trunk of my car. I was scheduled to stay overnight and leave the following morning for a flight to Chicago but it snowed all that day and we were informed that we would not be allowed to leave the hotel because the roads were all closed.The presentation went just fine and the Circus was on that evening and I remember walking about a hundred yards to the hall and there were just 40 of us in the audience and it was the P.T. Barnum Circus with a cast of over a hundred and they did their whole show for just the few of us who made it there. Next morning we were snowed in but I went outside and saw that they were working on a road where my parking lot was located and by making phone calls and asking around I learned that there was a road open out to the airport but the airport was closed. I took my shovel and dug my car out and headed for the airport. Let me say here that I had a reputation for never missing a booking. Somehow I had compiled a record of over a thousand engagements without missing one because of transportation or health. I drove to the airport and parked right across from the terminal. I went inside and learned that there was a flight leaving for Chicago. Not a regular flight but somehow I talked my way onto that flight and when we got to Chicago I hired a limo to take me to the hotel there. There was plenty of snow there in Chicago but it was functioning OK. I got to the hotel and my host advised me that a number of the attendees were having travel difficulties and he asked if I could speak early in the morning the next day because they were headed out to the airport for a trip overseas. That was fine with me and the next morning I gave my talk and hitched a ride with them to O’Hare. When I arrived there I learned that the Grand Rapids airport had not yet open but they had a flight, without any passengers going there and again I talked my way onto that flight. When I arrived in Grand Rapids my car was sitting there where I had parked it and it was fine; no ticket, no problem. I pulled onto highway 131 which I learned was partially opened. As I traveled down 131 it opened up all the way in to I 94 and it the Interstate opened just before I arrived there. I was able to drive all the way home to Battle Creek and park on the road just a few hundred feet from my home. I called the hotel and those convention attendees were still not allowed to leave the hotel.
Things were a bit different many years ago. Can you even imagine my making it to Chicago and back again that way? No way. Those were fun days for me. My intense positive thinking made a lot of miracles come true.
I know those roads, that hotel and those airports and it was more fun, when we trusted each other! I miss those days!
Sadly Franklin was right when he said:“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Just a shovel? I was taught to carry a shovel, a tow chain, jumper cables, blankets and in my higher powered light weight cars sandbags. I still cary jumpers and a tow strap, we don’t need a shove often in Houston.