Traveling with dad -- and boot

Published June 25, 2007

It was 4:50 a.m. and I was walking toward the back door of my parents' house.
My dad was standing in the doorway.
"You're late," he said.
Hmm. I told him I would be there at 4:45. Five minutes is, relatively, not late for his oldest daughter.
"You said you would be here at 3:45. I've been up since 3," he said.
"Dad, I didn't say quarter to 4," I told him as I reached for the door handle and scooted up next to him inside the doorway. "Anyway, are you ready to go?"
My dad and I were going on a trip. I've been trying to talk my parents into going out to Colorado to visit my son - their oldest grandchild - for a couple of years, but my mom won't fly and my dad won't drive so that was that.
But somehow my son finally talked his grandfather into coming out for a long weekend of golfing. I was just along for the ride.
A couple of weeks before we left, my father did something that would turn our trip into an adventure.
One morning, he took the hard way down the basement stairs - on his side with one arm sliding down the handrail and his long legs buckling underneath him. He got down the stairs faster that way but ended up with a broken ankle.
A broken ankle that - along with the size 13 foot attached to it - was now, in lieu of a plaster cast, encased in a big, black knee-high boot.
A big, black boot not good for hobbling around airports, let alone golf courses.
But nothing holds my father down - not even what amounts to a cement shoe - so the trip was still on.
My husband drove us to the airport and we had to hurry because, of course, even though my dad had been up since 3 a.m., we were still running late.
We were making good time until we got to security. They took one look at the boot and told me to wheel my father over to an inspector wearing plastic gloves and holding a wand.
He was joined by another inspector and while one poked and prodded with the wand, the other got out a fistful of those white circular swabs that check for explosive powder.
The swabber wiped the top of the boot where my father's toes were sticking out and fed the circle into a machine.
Then he got out another and wiped the side of the boot and fed it into the machine. And another. And another.
Finally, apparently convinced my father and his boot were no threat to other passengers, the inspectors released him. I whisked the wheelchair under him and we took off for the gate.
We were flying standby and knew that I - the sister of a Southwest employee - was a low-priority traveler. What I didn't know is that my dad - the parent of a Southwest employee - had a much loftier position that would also carry his traveling companion.
In the end, there was only one flight we wanted to get on and didn't. We were like VIPs on the other three legs of the trip. Being in a wheelchair - or pushing someone in a wheelchair - means you get on the plane first. And at Southwest, where there are no assigned seats or first class, that means sitting right up front.
And while the boot killed any golfing plans, it didn't keep us from sightseeing up in the mountains or sampling some of Denver's best restaurants.
It was a great adventure and, although it may pain my dad to hear it put this way, I think he got a kick out of it.