I
want to put you on a plane…
…heading
in to Rhode Island. Specifically, you are flying toward T. F.
Green Airport.
If
you head on over to the Green Airport web site, you will find
information on what many local people already now… it’s a growing
airport that is starting to reach slight hassle levels of business,
but for the most part is an incredibly smooth operation free of
many headaches that major airports present. Click on the link
for directions and you will find the details about getting to
the airport. Some of my favorite portions of those directions
include the following:
-
“easy
to follow directions to T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, RI”
-
“From
Providence, Northern Rhode Island, Massachusetts and points
north Take I-95 South to Exit 13”
-
“From
Providence Travel time approx: 10 minutes Travel distance:
8.5 miles”
Why
are those some of my favorite portions? Well…
I
don’t care what airline you are using for the flight you are on
as you head in to Green Airport. Every one of them… every one
of them… will have someone getting on the intercom to welcome
you to Providence. T.F. Green Airport is located in Warwick,
Rhode Island… not Providence. This has been a pet peeve
of me, and all Rhode Islanders for… well… forever.
State
Assemblyman Tom Umberg would probably join us in having a problem
with this. In fact, Umberg’s head would probably explode. Oh,
he’s not from Rhode Island. Not even from New England. Umberg
is out in California.
Yes.
California.
Without doing too much research… Green Airport gives me enough
evidence to continue with my story… there are plenty of places
that are named for cities and states that don’t reflect their
true location. As far as airports, the one in Syracuse, New York,
isn’t really in Syracuse as my memory recalls. It’s in North Syracuse.
The city of Syracuse owns the property that it resides on, it
is technically Syracuse, but it is not in the actual geographical
city limits of Syracuse. None of this stops T.F. Green or Hancock
International from being designated as PVD and SYR when it comes
to airport codes.
Naming
accuracy also doesn’t stop the New York Giants and New York Jets
from playing home games in New Jersey.
Recently,
the Anaheim Angels began using a new name—the Los Angeles Angels
of Anaheim—a name so silly and stupid it almost defies any attempt
to turn it into a joke. It’s just that dumb.
Back
to Tom Umberg.
Umberg
thinks that professional sports teams that use the name of cities
and states that don’t reflect the true location of where they
play most of their home games should be required to print disclaimers
on their tickets. (Yes, it would seem he’s serious. Yes, the only
thing dumber would be changing the name of your team from the
Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.)
Stop
me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s infinitely more important to
know where you are when your plane lands as opposed to what city
a ballpark is in.
Going
to a conference in Providence? Well, when you land at Green you’re
still approximately 8.5 miles away. See? That’s important when
you rent your car and try to get travel directions set up. But,
if you buy a ticket to see a home game of the Jets, Giants, Angels
and so on… well I can’t think of the time that you would do that
and not know where the stadium basically was. Sure, you might
need directions to get there, but I don’t think it’s a surprise
that you’ll be using the George Washington Bridge or head out
of the Los Angeles city limits.
As
a side note to all of this, I have decided to refer to the Angels
as the California Angels from now on. That was the name of the
organization years ago. (In fairness, I should disclose that they
also were the LA Angels once before as well, but never with their
little appeasement offering to Anaheim tacked on to the end.)
I would just continue calling them the Anaheim Angels, but: (1)
I grew up with them being the California Angels and kind of like
looking back at those days, and, (2) since they don’t want to
be from Anaheim, I can’t exactly force them to admit that they
are.
Now,
if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to plan a family vacation. We’re
flying from Warwick to Anaheim. Wish me luck.
~ ~
~ ~ ~
In
the early days of the In My Backpack web site, I was
trying several different ways to present material.
My
journal entries were referred to as “A Momentary Lapse…” for
a period of time, which eventually transitioned to “Are you
chewing gum?” for a bit. After a few restarts, modifications,
and relaunches, the Now Playing area took over.
One
of occasional segments—appearing perhaps ten times a year or
so—was called Random Thoughts, which I described as…
Too
long for “A Momentary Lapse…”… Not enough for a full article…
Need to get them off my “ideas to work on” list…
This
essay was originally created and presented as a Random Thoughts
entry. I’m bringing it back as a From the Backpack offering
because I’m curious about the content and the effort. But, worth
noting, it may still seem a bit incomplete, needing more development,
and may or may not have gone through some additional edits and
re-writes beyond my usual finds when searching the archives.