As I was careening through the streets of the City on the way to Heathrow today, my stray thoughts seemed to return again and again to the retro fashion I saw sweeping past the car windows. Really, one of the wonderful things about traveling is the constant reminder that there are so many different ways to do things; many ways to speak, to eat, to cross the road, to dress. And this naturally brought my thoughts to the eagerly anticipated upcoming “What Not To Wear In Montana” series expected soon at the excellent twokitties blog. But as I stood finally in the terminal waiting for the overhead display to announce my gate, a steady stream of What-Not-To-Wear-Anywhere candidates passed before me. I briefly considered a set of cell phone pictures to capture the otherwise-well-dressed suited man with the plastic white flip-flops or the dozen or so retro leggings-boots-sweater crowd to help you appreciate your mistake in thinking London style has moved beyond 1982.
But also catching my eye was a short young man, maybe 13 or 14 years old with the biggest 70s hairdo I’ve seen in a very long time. He was clearly traveling alone, intensely talking into a cell phone as he paced around the hall. The fact that this massive bob of hair (think Marge Simpson, but round) was pacing back and forth across my path was a bit distracting but totally comical. I watched him for a while, back and forth, and turned my attention back to the overhead board to find my gate announcement. I didn’t realize he was actually in some distress until he suddenly arced toward me and said to me, “My Dad wants to talk to you”.
Uh…
The series of racing thoughts that came next were quite amazing in retrospect. How did his Dad know I was here? Uh… Wait, who’s your Dad and why does he need me? Uh… Do you really mean for me to put that in my ear to talk on your cell phone?
Instead of taking his earpiece, I smiled and asked him if it was he or his father that needed help. After some back and forth he managed to communicate to me that he was trying to find the 11:20 flight to Riyadh but couldn’t figure out where to go. (I loved the way he used at least twice the number of syllables as I to correctly pronounce the name of his home city and I’m still practicing, but may never get that quite right.) Another glance at the board showed his gate 23 departure, and my offer to show him to the gate was met with both surprise and shoulder-falling relief and appreciation. Although I could not get all the way to his gate with him, stopped by immigration access to gates other than for my own flight, I wondered how relieved I’d left his worried Dad and I dreamed that someday his father might meet me as I wondered lost in the maze of the King Khalid airport.