4 - Sunday, July 7, 1991- North Shore News

Road trips and the moment of truth

THERE ARE nightmare stories galore about jet travel these days. So, for a change, here’s one about a trip that was flawless except for a minor human factor.

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There were four of us — the producer, two cameramen and me. We'd spent a week roaring

back and forth on the freeways of

Los Angeles, doing a TV documentary on dolphins. The task now was to get home

without having any further adven-

tures. I define an adventure as what happens when everything goes wrong.

The thrill of jet travel had long since worn off, leaving only a vague panic known as airport angst. What will go wrong this time? Will it be luggage screw-

ups? Will it be the tickets? Wrong counters? Flight delays? Customs?

Downed computers? Overloaded credit cards?

The situation didn't look pro- mising. There were four of us whose flights had to be coordi- nated, one of them at the last minute because of a change in plans. We had to drop off a rented van. We had to find the right airline counter at the L.A. terminal. It was an early morning flight.

Between us we had nearly 2G suitcases, knapsacks, camera cases, tripods, boxes of tape and sundry electronic gadgets.

And of course we would be hung over.

This is a tradition with road

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crews, a wrap party at the end of a gruelling shoot. No matter how wasted you are from a week of traffic and interviews with weird people, you have to stay up late and get plastered, otherwise you're not a team player.

Comes the moment of truth at dawn. Memories of a thousand other hung-over mornings in strange hotel rooms around the world return to resonate through this particular exquisite agony, adding an echo to the sense of de- ja vu vu vu vu vu...

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But we are road veterans, eh? Everything is packed. Within 15 minutes, the two cameramen and me are down in the van, equip- ment loaded, waiting for the pro- ducer.

The producer is a quick-witted, chatty non-male person who has logged nearly 300 ii esona rented cellular in the past five days. When she’s not on the cellular, she’s glued to a pay phone.

She is a telephone junkie.

The producer has also tended to be a teeny bit on the late side from time to time. Having long ago given up on hopes of attain- ing any kind of Zen state in this lifetime, I volunteered to get the producer moving. Don’t want to be late this time, do we?

I stomp over to the lobby phone and dial her room number. Busy! That won’t do! I grab the elevator up to her floor, march briskly down the hall and tap on her door.

No reply. She must be yapping so much on the phone she can’t hear. | tap harder. | press the buzzer. Still nothing.

Before I quite realize what has happened, 1 am pounding on the door with my fists and kicking it savagely, howling obscenities. (Amazing how much pent-up hos- tility can be released in so short a time-frame, given the proper con- ditions.)

incredibly, nothing happens.

PROVEN RESULTS with over 8 years experience!

LESLIE LaFLECHE 984-9711 (24 hrs.)

by JAMES RUSSELL

Diane Payette is a woman with a vision. For the past seven years, she has been active in the helping profes- sion. She now has a private practice, Rutley & Payette, on the North Shore.

Dianes vision is to con- vince the general public that counselling can be of value to everyone,

Most people still believe that going to therapy is a sign of weakness, or a proof of insanity, this is

certainly not true!

Why would a person want to go to counselling? Payette explains that

Have [ gone overboard? TrembI- ing, nursing a bruised right fist, | stumble downstairs only to spot the producer sitting in the van, looking impatiently at her watch. We must have passed each other on the elevators.

‘*What happened to your hand, Bob?"' one of the cameramen asks.

The next dramatic moment comes as we are caught up in the traffic vortex at the airport. The driver wants to go one way, the designated navigator the other, the producer another ... It has been like this all week.

At the last second, it is decided that one of the cameramen and me will leap out and escort the entire ton of equipment towards the flight deck while the other cameraman and the producer get rid of the van and somehow catch up with us.

All this goes amazingly well, considering all the X-ray machines and boxes of tape and cameras that have to be turned on and shown, until the moment comes when the woman at the counter asks for my ticket.

Where is my ticket?

No Zen for Bob today. Animal instinct takes over. Again, without quite realizing what I am doing, | am down on my knees on the floor, ripping my knapsack apart. Nothing. Frantically re-pack. Rip videocamera case apart. Nada. Re-pack. Rip bagfuls of goodies

for the folks back home apart.

Sull nothing. Stand, shuddering with frustration. Am about to throw total fit on floor of crowd- ed terminal when | remember: I’d nidden it in the special fap at the bottorn of the knapsack the first night we'd arrived.

Rip knapsack apart one more time. There it is! Habbalooja!

And from that point on, it all unfolded like a dreara. The other two members of our crew arrived just as the boarding passes were being stapled together. We had just enough time for a last drink at the bar before taking our seats.

The movie was a good one I hadn’t seen before. We landed in Toronto on schedule. We breezed through Customs without delay. The ton of equipment was trundl- ing about on the carousel already. My wife found me immediately. Shazam.

What a system when it works! Now if I could just get my act together...

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counselling is an oppor- tunity to transform a dif- ficulty into a possibility for growth. “We often cannot control the people or situa- tions that seem so frustra- ting and painful.

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