I met Jim in college, we lived together in the same dorms freshman year. He too was a boy scout and we hit it off pretty quickly. He also looked a lot like Dawson from Dawson's creek. Jim and I had a couple of adventures together that cemented our friendship and what follows is definitely the best one.
I think it was our sophomore year in college, Jim and I were both involved with a sports team that was travelling to Daytona Beach, FL for a competition. The plan was for the entire team to meet at the airport on a Monday morning. Neither Jim or I had a car. Instead of arranging for a taxi or for someone with a car to drive us to the airport, we decided that we would simply walk to the airport. Of course, since we were leaving in the morning and the airport was about 7 miles away, we had to leave in the middle of the night. Fortunately, our good friend Kelli had gotten a job at a local brew pub. This was a fantastic place, they actually brewed the beer on site, it had this wonderful dark smoky atmosphere, and most importantly it was on the way to the airport. Kelli was nice enough to run us a tab that never came due for payment! After numerous bowls of loud mouth soup, we set off on the journey. All in all, it was relatively straightforward, both of us had our gear in backpacks so it was easy walking along the streets of Buffalo. Then we reached the airport.
Since we had gone on foot, we had to stick to side streets and not take the major highway that most people take to get to the airport. Consequently, when we reached the airport we realized that we were nowhere near the entrance to the airport. Rather, we were clear on the other side. To reach the entrance we would have to walk completely around the airport, several miles and then likely have to walk on a pretty major road. So, we went with plan B. Plan B evolved at the instant we realized that we were on the wrong side of the airport. Even though this was way before September 11, there was an approximately 12 foot tall fence topped with barbed wire that surrounded the airport. Plan B involved scaling the fence and taking the direct route across the airport, even if it meant crossing a runway. We probably discussed it for less than 30 seconds before we decided to go for it. So, we threw our gear over the fence, scaled the fence, used our jackets to put over the barbed wire so that we could get over it and just like that we were inside the fence line.
To this day, I don't know how we got away with it. We saw the lights for the terminal off in the distance and just started walking. Amazingly, a couple of airport employees drove by us in a pick-up truck and didn't even slow down. They had to know we didn't work there. Here we are, two guys on foot carrying giant backpacks just traipsing across taxiways and runways. As we were crossing one runway, all of a sudden a large rotating yellow light came on. At first, I thought the jig was up, but it was simply a signal that a plane was inbound. It is pretty incredible to experience a jet landing just a hundred feet or so from you, the noise and the wind blast is incredible. I don't know if the pilots saw us or not, if they did, they didn't alert anyone.
The most bizzare part of the experience was that as we got close to the airport we ended up walking through a sort of fueling station for aircraft. It was like a filling station you would see on a highway, but massively scaled up and incredibly brightly lit. The fact that it was just like a regular filling station, but so massive in size made the experience so surreal. It felt like I was in one of those movies where the actor is shrunk. Where a blade of grass is all of a sudden the height of that person. That was exactly how I felt, you pull a jumbo jet into this area and refuel it. We got really lucky here because it was deserted. Certainly anyone there would have seen us pretty clearly because of the bright lights. That added to the awe factor, it was very quiet and you could hear the insistent hum of the electric lights and it just seemed so strange that this area existed and was completely deserted at the time. We didn't linger very long and were just about at the terminal. I patted my pockets and had that horrible feeling that I had lost my wallet. I panicked and checked again, sure that I had put it in the breast pocket of the shirt I was wearing. I don't know why I had placed it there, but I was sure I had. I informed Jim and told him that I thought it must have fallen out when we scaled the fence. Ever a good friend, he agreed to accompany back. As strange as it seems, we now felt significantly more comfortable walking around the airport, we walked back, once again crossing active runways and taxiways, once again no-one saw us, or if they did took very little notice. It was probably around 3 am, so the airport was not super busy. Once we reached the fence I couldn't find my wallet anywhere. I then guessed that it must have fallen out when I was on the other side of the fence, and was about to scale it again. Jim, was smarter than me though. He urged me to check my pockets, all my pockets, one last time. Sure enough, my wallet was in one of the cargo pockets of the pants I was wearing. Most likely I had moved it when we were getting ready to go over the fence and simply forgot about it in the excitement. Most people would have been pretty infuriated that I had turned a one way trip across an airport into a 3 way trip. Jim just laughed it off, called me an idiot (in the nicest way possible) and we set off again. 3 trips across an airport, 3 opportunities to be caught and amazingly we never did. Most of the details are pretty clear in my mind, what I cannot remember exactly is how we got into the terminal once we reached it. Surely all the doors would have been armed and would have required a special pass. I think we ended up climbing the fence on the other side and then we simply walked the 100 yards or so to the terminal entrance. We were both pretty wiped at this point and we had a few hours to kill. So we both kind of slept in the baggage claim area until later that morning when all of our teammates arrived. I don't think they ever believed us 100% that we walked to the airport, but we absolutely did. That was the first time Jim had shown me what a great friend he was, but it certainly wasn't the last.
My dad died suddenly when I was a junior in college, I got no warning, he had a massive heart attack one night and passed away shortly after. At the time, I didn't tell anyone, not even Jim. I took off for a few days to go to the funeral and when I got back Jim was kind of ribbing me about skipping class and how it wasn't like me. When he asked me where I had gone, I replied in a flat voice "To my Dad's funeral" I shouldn't have said it like that, I only realize how selfish it was now. How terrible I made him feel. There was no way he could have guessed that. Of course, he didn't call me on it, he just offered his friendship again when I needed it most. He made it a point to check on me, but did it in such a manner that it never seemed overbearing. He made it clear that he was there to listen, but never pushed me to talk. When he would travel home to visit his family, he would always invite me along and made me feel part of his family.
One night, there was a bunch of us hanging out in the hallway of the dorm room. At this stage, early on in the grieving process, I had no control of the emotions. One minute you would be fine, but in an instant, all the feelings would come crashing down and you were helpless to resist it. I don't know how he knew, but he knew that the wave was coming. He could see my lips quivering and the tears welling in my eyes. I hadn't told anyone else yet. All he said was "Do you need a hug", and I did. I held onto him in the middle of that dorm room and perhaps for the first time let all the emotion out, sobbing uncontrollably and barely able to stand up. It got better after that, the release of all that energy made it easier to handle. Once again, he had shown his true colors as a selfless friend.
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