The Fickle Finger of Fate

[AlanHo]

A group of us were chatting over “refreshments” last evening and we found ourselves talking about the fickle finger of fate. How decisions you make each day can result in a certain course of events. Good or bad.

 

One of the group considered herself lucky because she and her husband were booked on a hot air balloon flight some years ago, but her husband had been taken ill and they had to defer the flight to another date. The balloon they were originally booked on hit some power lines and the occupants were all severely injured. Two dying afterwards.

 

This reminded me of my near miss of certain death.

 

I was manager of engineering at a large aluminium rolling mill in Birmingham – which had been taken over by Kaiser Aluminium USA.  In 1964 I was required, with a colleague who was Production Manager, to visit the USA and spend 6 weeks in the various Kaiser plants to see how they operated. The trip took us to Seattle, Trentwood, Reno, Stockton, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Ravenswood WV and New York (where we visited the World’s Fair).

 

Here comes the near miss.

 

We were in Stockton and due to catch a very early morning flight to San Francisco. I think it was about 6:30 a.m which meant a very early get-out-of-bed. I vaguely recall it was a Pacific Airlines propeller plane. The day before this flight we were advised that the meeting we were due to attend in Oakland had been postponed by 2 days – so we changed to a later flight that day to avoid having to get up at an ungodly hour. We didn’t know until the following day, that the flight we were due to catch had crashed just before landing at San Francisco. It was later revealed that a passenger had insured himself to the hilt and shot both the pilots. I think about 40 or 50 people were killed. The thought of what might have been, gave me the shivers for a long time.

 

I also recalled that when we were in San Francisco with some free time to go sightseeing, we caught a Greyline touring coach to spend a day seeing all the main sights. As we boarded, I spotted two people in the front seats who didn’t need to be wearing Union Flag clothing, for me to know they were British. We just said hello and passed a few pleasantries, as we do, and didn’t think anything of it.

 

Six weeks later we were in New York and again took a Greyline bus to see the sights and visit the World Fair. Guess who was on the coach – the same two people.

 

They were as amazed as we were at the remarkable coincidence and we got chatting for the rest of the day. It transpired that they were both civil servants who at the ripe old age of 56 had retired on healthy pensions. They had commuted some of the pensions into a cash sum in order to fund a 12 month World Tour. They were travelling by freight ships who were allowed to take, I believe, just 12 passengers. They were on the last leg of the trip and were due to catch their final freighter back to Liverpool in a few days time.

 

So there you have it – my fickle finger of fate story.  Have you got one?

 

As an aside my colleague wanted to go to Macy's store in New York to buy something nice for his wife (Mmmm thought I. I knew him to a ladies man) He navigated his way to the ladies underwear section and proceeded to choose some frillies. He was sweating a bit and I found the whole spectacle funny. At some point the assistant asked him something which he didn't quite hear and assumed they wanted to know whether to gift wrap. he nodded and said yes. The assistant said it will take a few minutes and directed us to a small sitting area with a screen partly hiding it from the store. The next thing I recall - and even I was embarrassed - this young lady appears dressed just in the underwear he had chosen. It transpired he had asked for the stuff to be modelled. Afterwards he pleaded with me to be a sport and forget all about it - which rather confirmed my suspicions.

 

I bet the PC brigade have put a stop to that sort of thing now.

 

[andsome]

All of my fingers a strictly non fickle. Long term fickleness can cause severe arthritis.