Today’s drive took me from northern Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky. I saw the stadiums where the Reds and Bengals play, plus the Kentucky Speedway. Somewhere in all of that I ventured near something called The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Regional Airport. I have a history with that airport. Not a good one, either. But what I learned during my two brushes with the place is irreplaceable because I got two great stories as a result.
I was
still a teenager the first time I ventured to step foot on that crazy, little
joint. Dad sent me tickets to fly east to see him. We had a bunch of stuff
planned for my visit. One of the things I wanted to do was visit the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway. AGAIN. I never get enough of that place. Anyway, dad told me
that I’d fly to the Cincinnati airport, change planes, then head for Indiana.
As I
recall, the flight was uneventful until we landed. That’s when the fight attendant
welcomed us to KENTUCKY, told us what time it was IN KENTUCKY and informed us
that we had reached KENTUCKY on time. All passengers seeking connecting flights
IN THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY REGIONAL AIRPORT had arrived in plenty of time to take
their next flight, taking them out of KENTUCKY. At no time did the flight
attendant mention the magic word, CINCINNATI.
I got
off that plane as quickly as I could, found a phone booth and placed a collect
call to my dad.
ME:
Dad! The idiot pilot screwed up! We flew to Kentucky instead of Cincinnati.
DAD: He
didn’t make a mistake. That’s the Cincinnati airport.
ME:
Dad! Cincinnati is in Ohio, right? Where the Reds play? I said I’m in KENTUCKY!
The
truth is that my geographic knowledge for anything east of Arizona and west of North
America was a little weaker than it is now. But even then, I was aware that
Cincinnati was NOT in Kentucky. The conversation resumed:
DAD:
The airport is right on the border with Kentucky and Ohio. It’s very close to
Cincinnati, so they call it the Cincinnati airport.
ME:
Even though it’s in Kentucky?
DAD:
That’s right.
Not all
together true, as it turned out. The Cincinnati airport, the one in Kentucky,
is about an hour from the Ohio line. It would be just as easy for Cincinnati
fliers to drive to the Dayton, Ohio airport or the one serving the airline industry
in Columbus, Ohio. Both of those airports are in Ohio, which shows truth in advertising.
Years
later, I was headed back for another go in Kentucky. Or Cincinnati. Or
whatever. Once again, I was traveling to Indianapolis, this time to cover the
500 for the radio station I worked for. There was a media breakfast I wanted to
attend because AJ Foyt was going to be there. I said AJ Foyt. Yes, THAT AJ
Foyt. He was going to speak at this media function. I had secured tickets for
dad and me to attend this event.
But
things did not go as planned when the pilots attempted to bring our plane to
the Northern Kentucky airport. We circled for a while and then landed somewhere
else. Maybe the pilots actually circled Cincinnati, trying to find the airport,
I don’t know. After a while, they loaded us back in the plane and flew us to
KENTUCKY. I had missed my connecting flight. I’d be added to the next flight to
Indianapolis, scheduled to leave KENTUCKY the next afternoon.
Well,
the heck with that. I wasn’t going to skip having breakfast with AJ Foyt because
of some problem, you know, wherever we were. I tried to rent a car. No rental
agencies had cars. I tried to catch a bus. The airport was closed to busses
because of a hideous traffic snarl at the Kentucky airport that was not in
Cincinnati. But I did discover that there was a bus leaving for Indy about an
hour from the time I learned about it. All I had to do was find a taxi, race to
a bus station in the middle of some city that I don’t recall now and get on the
bus before it left town.
Try
that sometime after midnight in the middle of Kentucky.
But a
kindly taxi driver was sitting at the curb when I walked out the terminal door.
I explained my problem. He said, “Sure, kid.” Then we waited for the people who
had called for the cab in the first place. When the cabbie explained that he
would drop me off first, the other people were upset. Then I explained that I
had arranged for my mortally ill father (who was in perfect health) to meet his
idol, AJ Foyt (Foyt is my idol, not dad’s) at a breakfast that morning and I
HAD to catch the bus. And the wonderful people in that cab waived off their objections.
I made the bus by several minutes. Maybe I made it because I was not slowed
down due to carrying my luggage. The airline had it somewhere.
The guy
I sat next to on the bus that night wanted to talk all the way to Indy. I
finally asked him to be quiet and, to his credit, he did.
Dad brought shaving gear
to the bus station in Indianapolis, so I would be presentable at the very
professional event I was attending. As I shaved in the men’s room, Dad kept
saying, over and over again, “I’ll be darned. I didn’t think you’d make it.”
But we did. Dad and I made
it to that media breakfast. Dad watched as I interviewed the greatest driver in
the history of the world, AJ Foyt. I know Dad enjoyed watching me interview
Foyt, but he was probably prouder of my wild, late-night dash from the
Cincinnati airport, wherever it is, to Indianapolis.
I’m just glad that I didn’t
have to drive back to the Cincinnati airport. I might have looked for it in
Ohio.
