On the way across this huge nation of ours, I had a layover at O'Hare in Chicago where our pilot pointed out the prototype of the largest commerical passenger jet in the world which is touring America...
The European made Airbus 380. Although it doesn't look that big from afar, it's wingspan is as big as a football field. It's here in the United States for airline executives to see, but thus far no major American carrier expressed any intention to order any of these monster airplanes.
Anyway, getting back to my trip, I hadn't been to O'Hare in a number of years. When I was in college at Tufts, I would regularly fly through Chicago on my way home from Boston to Honolulu. And during those trips, I would transfer from a relatively small plane from Boston to a much larger one for the direct flight to Hawaii.
That meant I had to go through a tunnel from one terminal to another - something I had not done for many, many years.
But yesterday I got to visit the "doodledoodledoodle" tunnel in O'Hare. "Doodledoodledoodle" is best pronounced when sung aloud repeatedly as alternating ascending and descending scales. That is the sound that coincides with the blinking lights in the tunnel between terminals at O'Hare...
I always loved going through this tunnel numerous times a year almost some twenty years ago. Ah hah, my fascination with all that colorful neon was foreshadowing my future home in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada!
Upon my arrival in Greensboro, North Carolina, however, I quickly realized that the fancy parts of the giant O'Hare International Airport simply did not exist in Greensboro.
While we used a jetway in Chicago when boarding our plane, getting off was a little more old fashioned...
Of course, after walking down the steps off the plane, we immediately had to walk up another stairway to get into the terminal...
As you can see in the picture above, the guy in front of me wasn't pleased with having to walk down and up all those stairs. At least on Molokai there weren't any stairs!
I am in Greensboro to meet with other foundation executives from across the nation to discuss weighty, important and pressing issues facing our field and our nation...
Just pretend you don't see the goofy guy on the top right of the picture. Actually, I'm here for a meeting of the Committee on Inclusiveness which promotes inclusive practices at foundations, which is important work. It's just that while we taket he work very seriously, we don't take ourselves very seriously - which is probably just the way it should be!
Well, the worst part about having a meeting in Greensboro is that it eats up three days for us pacific time zone people. Because it is such a small airport, there aren't any direct flights from the far western states. So that means unless folks like me want to spend the night flying, we have to fly in on Tuesday for an all day Wednesday meeting, and then cannot leave until Thursday.
That part really stinks because it consumes three of my work days to participate in only one day's work. While this is important stuff we're doing here, I hate wasting all that time.
So anyway, I decided to spend this evening searching out a nice but unique restaurant at which to have dinner. I figured if I was going to come all this way, I didn't want some local diner - I wanted to sample some real local delicacies.
The hotel concierge pointed me to an area in which I would find "a number of wonderful new restaurants" that have opened in the last two years.
I guess in Greensboro, you don't realize that you can find places like this...
...Mimi's Cafe on every other corner in a big city.
And last time I checked, P.F. Chang's isn't exclusive to Greensboro...
Nor is Macaroni Grill...
I thought I found a neat little outdoor cafe with umbrellas...
Only to realize it is a Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Shop.
Finally, I found Flemming's - a nice steakhouse complete with valet parking and a unique atmosphere...
I was talking to my wife on the phone who was back home sitting in front of her computer at the time. A quick google search on her part revealed that there is a Flemming's Steakhouse about four miles from our home in Las Vegas.
So finally I gave up and at decided upon something uniquely Greensboroian...
Chick-fil-a. Home of the...
Okay, maybe it's a fast food joint, but at least it's one that can only be found in the south. I figured if I'm going to eat something I don't really want, I might as well save the Nevada Community Foundation a few bucks on my meal tonight.
Of course, the homogenization of America isn't limited to restaurants.
Every time I travel on business, I bring back a gift for each of my kids and a jewelry box for my wife. Ideally, I want to find things that are indicative of the place I'm visiting - it doesn't make a lot of sense to bring back something that they could have purchased back home just down the road.
So I also asked the concierge to point me in the direction of a funky or interesting shopping area where I could pick up some gifts for my family. He sent me to a literally brand new outdoor center of shops which is the gem of Greensboro.
Here you can find "unique" places like J.Jill and Talbots...
and Foot Locker, Lane Bryant...
And of course Barnes & Noble and Old Navy...
Not exactly original Greensboro shops. In fact, every single store in this open air uptown-type shopping is part of a major retail chain. The only thing I had never heard of was Harris Teeter - their grocery store. But even that is a major southern grocery store chain.
At first I thought how sad that the funky, original and unique stores can hardly be found anymore.
But then, I did find this in one of the chain stores I visited today...
Anti-bacterial, hand-washable, quick-drying women's travel underwear that can be worn every single day for 42 consecutive days.
Maybe there are some cool things about corporate America after all.
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