The View From 30,000 Feet

The trip has become familiar. I’ve done it monthly for what now seems like an eternity. With luck this will be the last trip.

But I never really looked out the window on the earlier trips.

Quickly, the lights of the city fade into the darkness. Then the tiniest whisps of gold and crimson begin to limn the edges of the clouds I can make out. The air clears and you can see down to a mountain range. Morning ground fog looks almost like surf on a rock-bound coast. It seems to follow a tidal wash coursing through canyons and over precipices as it slowly disappears droplet by droplet.

Then we are over a plain. It is marked by the circles of irrigation machines that seem like graphiti from ancient astronauts. They clump and group and seem to change sizes at will. Then we are on approach to Denver. It is bumpy, like running a rapids in a raft trussed up to deal with the inevitable pounding.

On the ground and into agony. Since I have two bad knees, walking through airports is like the Bataan death march every time I make a connection.

We’re on time! Pulling away from the gate I see part of the daily ballet of the ground crew assuring that another bird gets to the taxiway and eventually takes wing.

There are scattered remains of snow on the run-up to the Rockies. In a few weeks it will be gone. For me, now, it is just a memory as we make or way east into a sun rising over the heartland.

That vast territory between the coasts that you can see from an airliner window is mostly rolling green countryside with roads that look like something rulered in that terminate in little squiggles and hash marks that indicate towns with at most one stop light. It looks lonely down there from up here.

I’m now a coaster. Folks that live on the coasts of the USA tend to think a little differently from those that live in what some disdainfully call the “fly-over states.” That is true based on my experience and some confirming research from Marketers and Social Scientists.

Coasters tend to be a little more progressive politically and socially. They also tend to be the ones setting up the new social mores and where you’ll find the leading lights of most of the creative arts. That’s why coastal cities tend to attract young men and women who want the adventure of living in a place that “gets it.” They want to take their college degrees and migrate to places like Portland where they believe the simple act of being will make them a living.

It doesn’t work that way. You build a living, find a mate, have kids and then find yourself at 30,000 feet headed for your last tussle with you Mom’s estate. You return to the river city you left 50 years ago, you thought for good. But through the years you’ve repeatedly seen that wide bend in the Ohio glinting in the sunshine. You’ve seen the river’s edge go from muck and ruin to a park feted year-round.

Even the roadways have changed. Towns that once took hours to reach are now minutes away thanks to the new roads.

The countryside is at once familiar and foreign.

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Trust-based Brand development, Positioning and Business Development for independent professionals on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com