Have you ever been stranded in an airport for hour upon hour? The agony of waiting at an uncomfortable airport gate not knowing when you’ll get home! On this program, Shawn Boonstra shares how getting stranded at the airport connects with 19th-century America, and your future! Listen to hear just how he connects each of those dots.

<p>Have you ever been stranded in an airport for hour upon hour? The agony of waiting at an uncomfortable airport gate not knowing when you’ll get home! On this program, Shawn Boonstra shares how getting stranded at the airport connects with 19th-century America, and your future! Listen to hear just how he connects each of those dots.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Voice Of Prophecy

Shawn Boonstra

Delayed Departure

Today, on the Voice of Prophecy, what it means to get stranded in an airport, what that has to do with 19th century America, and what that has to do with your future.

You know, I wonder, is there anything more frustrating than boarding a plane, only to sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours because of bad weather, and then get told the flight's going nowhere?

Because now it's late at night, you have to find a hotel, and You've got to hope there's still a room left somewhere, and then you have to get up at 3 in the morning and try it all again.

Now maybe I'm the only person that ever happens to, because there are some weeks it almost seems like I was born with this special gift for getting stranded in an airport, getting 4 hours sleep, 4 nights in a row, and then going back to the airport early in the morning, hoping desperately that this time I'm actually going to get on a flight.

You know, jokingly, I used to tell my co-workers it must be their fault.

If they weren't traveling with me on the same plane, then things would go smoothly.

But then this last winter, I had a week that made it obvious they weren't the problem.

For a solid 2 weeks, I got stranded in every city I went to.

And honestly, Minneapolis is the 1 that really surprised me because you'd think if there's 1 place in America where they should be able to handle winter, it would be Minneapolis.

But I actually got stuck there for almost 2 days.

I mean, maybe if you see me on your flight, you should turn around and get back off, because chances are your plane's not going anywhere.

I don't really believe in bad luck, so please don't write me letters about being superstitious.

I guess I'm just getting old and crotchety and I'm getting sick of flying.

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's anything quite as deflating as getting to the airport early, boarding your flight on time, and then getting stuck on the tarmac for hours on end in this tiny seat that seems like it was made for leprechauns.

I mean, don't get me wrong, this is still better than our ancestors had it, because If they got stranded by the snow, it was in a wagon train on the way to Oregon, and they had to eat their relatives instead of the little bags of peanuts.

And the precious few survivors from the Donner Party didn't actually come back down till the following spring.

So I guess there's not that much to complain about, because even the longest delay, it's still a modern miracle by comparison to the world our grandparents lived in.

In fact, my grandparents actually emigrated to Canada by ship.

So you and I, yeah, we still have it better.

But when you've been traveling for a week or 2, and you're in a different city every day, and when the last night's flight gets in at midnight, and you have to get up at 3 in the morning to catch the next plane, and then you board that plane to find out you're not going home?

But it's nowhere near as deflating as what happened to this guy I read about a few years ago.

A guy who got himself granted a leave of absence from the front lines of World War II.

He'd been sleeping in the muddy trenches for who knows how long.

He had to shave his head to get rid of the lice.

And he hadn't had a bath or a shower in months.

So you can imagine how good it must have felt to get on a train that was headed away from the front.

You can imagine how good it felt when that train pulled away from the station and started driving him away from the war.

He must have been like, oh, pinch me, is this real?

And then, just a few stops down the track, just a few towns away, they suddenly turn everybody around.

Because apparently, things had changed at the front and they needed all hands on deck right now.

So the leaves were cancelled, and now this guy—I think his name was Marty—Marty found himself headed back to the front without as much as 1 night in a real bed.

So I guess when you put it in perspective, I'll take a snowy flight delay any time over World War II.

And I'll take a snowy flight delay any day over what happened to a guy by the name of Mehran Nasseri.

Now, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly.

He was an Iranian national who went to school in Britain in 1974.

And while he was at school, his dad dies, and so he runs out of money.

And what do you do when you run out of money?

Nasseri went back to Iran, and like so many other college students, he managed to get caught up in those protests against the Shah of Iran in 1977.

That was the year I think that Elvis died.

Nasseri suddenly finds himself without a home.

So he spends the next 4 years backpacking across Europe, looking for some country that would take him in.

And finally, in 1981, he was accepted as a political refugee in Belgium, and you would think that would be the end of the story.

Except that in 1988, he suddenly gets this idea that he might have a claim on British citizenship, so he tries to go to England.

And the problem with that is that someone stole his briefcase in the Paris train station, so he loses all his refugee papers and now he has no ID.

But no problem, he decides to board a plane for Heathrow anyway, and of course when he lands, the English turn him away for having no papers.

So he flies back to Paris, or I guess he's actually deported to Paris, and the French arrest him for illegal entry.

The problem is, he has no papers, so they don't know where to send him.

And he takes up residence in a red plastic chair in Terminal 3 at Charles de Gaulle Airport while the immigration officials work on his case.

And of course, you know the government doesn't move fast, so his case took a while.

Now, when I first heard this story a few years ago, I had trouble believing it.

So I actually called the airport and I asked them there.

So so I tried to page him and get him to come to the phone, but he wouldn't do it.

So I didn't speak to him, but I knew he was there.

He actually lived in the airport while they tried to figure out his case.

So, if you felt sorry for Edward Snowden because he spent a month in the lounge in the airport— a month?

Man, that's nothing compared to this guy.

Snowden's captivity is almost a holiday by comparison.

Just try to imagine this—getting stuck in an airport for years.

I mean, if I get stuck there for a day, even 1 night, I get a little stir-crazy.

How do you live in an airport for decades?

He waited till the last flight of the night was finished so he could go and wash up in the public restroom, and then he did the same thing in the morning before the flights began again.

And then he spent another day sitting in a red plastic chair.

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Delayed Departure

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