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| April
1999 Inside this issue
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The
Parson’s Pen  By Dennis Daniel Our takeoff was delayed about half an hour as we watched the drama of the overfull toilet. Apparently the maintenance crew had recharged the toilet with the familiar blue liquid without being aware that the load from the previous flight had not drained. The blue stuff was right to the lip of the toilet, and no one wanted to experience either a takeoff or a landing with so much chemical fertilizer on board in an open container. The young man who was sent to check on the complaint by the maintenance department was obviously the person with the lowest rank and the least seniority. "We need a real man to handle this job," the attendants wisecracked. "You haven’t found him," he replied after looking at the toilet. "Keep trying." Another emissary from the ground crew came aboard, looked into the toilet, jiggled the handle, tugged on the wires that were supposed to release the sump valve. Nothing worked. "Not in my job description," he said. The crew outside brought their sewage truck up to the aircraft again and opened the drain from the outside. Nothing came out. A call went out for a plumber (or a plumber’s friend). Everyone on the aircraft was quietly dreading having to wait for an hour or more until an expert could arrive and solve our difficulty. Finally the cockpit crew decided to act. It would be unseemly for the pilot to deal with matters of clogged plumbing, so they sent the Engineer. (I hadn’t known that airplanes carried engineers.) He hustled the length of the plane with a couple of very large plastic bags in his hand. One of these he used to cover his hand and arm. The other was tied around his neck like a bib by one of the flight attendants. Thus defended, he thrust his arm deep into the toilet, discovered the paper towel that was blocking the drain, and pulled it out. It took him all of fifteen seconds. The passengers applauded and the flight attendants dubbed him The Man. I wish I could have heard the ribaldry in the cockpit when he returned to his post. All of which is to say that sometimes heroism is a matter of being willing to clean the drain - or shovel the walks - or put away the tables and chairs after a church affair - or collating and stapling the newsletter. John Wayne used to call it "doing what a man’s got to do," the necessary tasks that make social enterprises possible. We have many such heroes and heroines around here. Any church does. We need to remember to applaud them and respect the effort they put into making our common life more interesting and more comfortable. — Affectionately, Dennis * Please note a change in the
ministers’ office hours: |
First
Unitarian News 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave. • Chicago, IL
60637-1691 • 773/324-4100 Production editors: John Else Next newsletter deadline: 5:00 p.m., Thu., April 15, 1999 |
