Tales From A Terminal Spokane’s Airport Offers Endless People-Watching Opportunities

It’s 6:25 in the morning and a little girl with brown hair is staring out a big window on concourse B. She’s looking at a white United Airlines jet parked in the predawn darkness.

“No, not that one,” says her mother.

The family has brought Grandma to Spokane International Airport. In a few minutes, she will get on Delta flight 1587, bound for Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. But now it’s time for a round of snapshots.

The little girl’s mother directs. She speaks English to her husband and two children, and Spanish to her mother.

Several other flights are boarding at about the same time. People are moving in every direction beneath the bright lights. The public address system spews names and numbers.

But when the moment arrives for the old woman to go get on her plane, it’s suddenly as if the family is alone. Everything going on around them seems to fade away. They form a huddle and hug. And then their beloved visitor has to leave, tottering slightly as she goes.

“Bye, Grandma.”

“Bye, Grandma.”

Quickly the two kids are clamoring around their father, a bear of a man. They want candy or something. But for what might be the first time all morning, he’s ignoring them. He puts a big arm around his wife, who has tears running down her face. He kisses her on the top of the head and then whispers something in her ear. She sniffs and nods.

Nobody pretends that Spokane’s airport is an O’Hare or DFW. It’s not even in a league with SeaTac.

But every single day it does two important things. It helps connect residents of the Inland Northwest with the rest of the country and the world. And it showcases what is arguably the best, most culturally informative people-watching the Spokane area has to offer.

Many of us get only a limited sense of that because most airport visits are relatively brief and are often defined by waiting. But if you spent, say, half a day there this past Tuesday, you might have seen that the place is a lot like one of those time-lapse films depicting the pace of modern life.

The changes don’t happen quite that fast. But they never stop.

6:45 A fiftyish couple sits down where Grandma’s family had been minutes before. He’s got on a sort of “Crocodile Dundee” hat and he’s talking about wanting to get to bed by 9 o’clock.

When her row is called, the woman gets up without a word. At the jetway door, she looks back and waves. The guy in the hat is watching. He shoots one hand into the air. Then she’s gone.

7:16 The jet carrying Grandma lifts off, engines roaring.

A guy in a Mariners cap watching through a window becomes possibly the millionth person to do a “Fantasy Island” impression at an airport.

“The playne … the playne.”

7:20 About 50 Japanese students who have spent five months at Eastern Washington University wait to board a United flight to San Francisco. A few are crying. So are some of the Americans waiting with them.

7:45 Over on the A concourse, people waiting to get on a Southwest flight to Oakland/Los Angeles/El Paso read newspapers or watch NBC’s “Today” on a TV.

“Who the hell would want to go to El Paso?” a bald guy in a suit asks the man with him.

7:47 Over at the windows, a family waves to a plane taking off in the distance before realizing it’s a Federal Express jet, not the one they’re waiting to see.

8:04 A young couple holding big Eddie Bauer bags tentatively step through a door, just off their flight from Seattle. The woman’s broad smile does a slow 15-second fade when she sees nobody is there to meet them. They head off to baggage claim.

8:16 “Glenn Mason. Glenn Mason. To a white courtesy phone. Glenn Mason.”

8:30 Four of the Japanese students have one of their American friends by the arms and legs over by a Snapple cooler. They swing her up and down as they chant something in Japanese.

8:40 About half of the dozen or so Americans are crying.

9:00 Over in the main terminal, a little girl holding a pink rabbit looks up and behind her on the down escalator. “C’mon, daddy.”

9:25 At the Southwest counter, a woman checking her bags tells the agent that her “darling” is giving her hiking boots for Valentine’s Day.

9:41 As per the routine, a Southwest agent asks an elderly woman checking in if any strangers had given her a package to take on the plane. The woman seems utterly baffled, finally answering, “Oh, no, I would never accept anything like that.”

9:51 A giddy guy smiling at this one stunning Southwest agent catches the look on the face of the woman he’s standing with. He loses the smile pronto.

10:15 A young man in a chauffeur’s outfit walks though the terminal holding a pink plastic sign with black letters: “DAVE SMITH.”

10:21 A twentysomething woman just off a flight from Portland stands by baggage carrousel No. 2 with two people who must be her parents. She issues her travel report: “They gave us cookies instead of peanuts.”

“Really?” says the older woman.

10:36 A tired-looking fortyish guy from Seattle standing at the Budget rental car counter turns away from the woman preparing his paperwork and addresses the man with him. He’s thinking about the business ahead of them. “If we can’t get this taken care of today, I don’t know …”

10:50 A guy from South Dakota standing at the Budget counter asks if there are any mountain passes between Spokane and Moses Lake.

11:29 Two military men in camouflage step back from one of the baggage carousels to let a longhaired unreconstructed citizen of the Woodstock nation step up and grab his bag. “Thanks,” says the guy with the hair.

“You bet,” says one of the guys in camouflage.

11:35 In a gate area on the A concourse, one preschooler expresses exasperation with another child’s grasp of the itinerary. “We’ve already BEEN in Seattle.”

11:45 Two female flight attendants call up to a guy in a flight crew uniform who is reading a sign at the airport’s main restaurant. “Chucky! Chucky! Bye!” Chucky waves back.

A woman in a striped blouse and black pants standing near him makes a point on a cordless phone and gestures with her free hand.

The whine of jet engines can be heard mingling with the buzz/tweet from the metal detector at the security checkpoint not far away.

11:55 A Seattle-based saleswoman having lunch at the restaurant tells the woman sitting with her that being away from her young son for extended stretches is killing her.

12:20 A woman in a blue jacket and jeans stands by the windows at the end of the A concourse and waves slowly side-to-side as a Minneapolisbound Northwest flight eases up off the runway. A person on that plane probably couldn’t see her with a telescope. But she couldn’t leave till she had watched the plane get safely into the air.

12:30 A Couple Having a Hard Day pulls up in front of the terminal in a silver compact car. The twentysomething guy makes a bunch of quick back-and-forth parking corrections to get within an inch of the curb. His wife rolls her eyes as obviously as is humanly possible.

But then they turn into a smooth, efficient car-unloading team. In practically no time, a baby in a carrier and A LOT of luggage have been hauled into the terminal. She stays to check the bags. And he’s off to find a place in the parking garage.

12:33 A guy walking through the terminal sets the Spokane freestyle sarcasm record when he says, “Oh, I had a GREAT time.”

12:40 Inside now, the Couple Having a Hard Day’s little boy is released from the carrier. He promptly makes a break for it. And he almost makes it out one of the automatic terminal-exit doors. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” his mom says as she runs bent-over after him.

12:45 “We should’ve given Mark a tip,” a white-haired woman says to a white-haired man.

“Oh, c’mon,” the man says with a sigh.

12:47 Their business concluded at the main United counter, the Couple Having a Hard Day heads toward their gate. “You got the tickets?” he asks.

She shoots him a divorceface look.

1:30 At one of the parking-exit toll booths, a guy with a tan reaches out of his truck and hands over his ticket. He doesn’t flinch when told he owes $86.50.

1:35 “I had uneventful flights from Pittsburgh,” another man tells the woman in the toll booth after she asks about his trip. “That’s always good.”

The couple in the next car have a look on their faces that suggests things are going to get R-rated in a hurry when they get home.

1:39 A woman hands over a light green ticket. None of the lots at the airport issue light green tickets. A futile search ensues.

1:41 “I think I’m going to find the nearest bar,” says a man who looks like he’s quite serious.

His brother-in-law had been to Spokane for a visit. You get the idea that they aren’t close. “I outlasted him,” says the guy in the car.

1:46 Back in the terminal, at the main metal detector, a traveler wants to know if he should empty his pockets. “Quarters and stuff?” he asks the guard.

“Anything metal, sir,” the guard answers. “Cigarette lighters, a pen, butcher knife, color TV.”

1:50 Up at a B concourse gate, the Couple Having a Hard Day waits for a flight to Denver. He announces that he is going over to some nearby electronic games and try his luck. This doesn’t seem to please her. “We’re already checked in and everything, right?” he asks as he’s walking away.

2:00 A businessman sitting at a pay phone is leaving the longest phonemail message in history.

2:02 A dad tells a towheaded little boy the facts of life. “Jace, when we’re at Disneyland, if you just run off like that, you’re going to get lost.”

2:20 In the main gift shop/ newsstand, a recorded promo for a series of background-sound cassettes or CDs plays over and over. “Welcome to NorthSound, an alternative in nature and music …”

A thirtysomething man in a gray suit is taking a long, hard look at an US magazine cover featuring a leggy photo of the female stars of “Friends.”

2:50 Up at the bar portion of the main restaurant, three women who look like they are in their 20s are seriously ripping a mutual acquaintance who is not present. “Can you believe what she tries to do with her hair?” one of them snarls.

The TV is set on Headline News.

2:55 One of the three at the bar has to head to her gate. “Come back in the summertime,” one of the others says. “You can have way more fun.”

3:01 Over in the C concourse, a guy heading toward the door leading to a short walk in the rain to his Billingsbound flight takes a last look in the direction of a pizza counter. “Man, that smells good,” he says.

3:15 Back in the main terminal, a little girl is walking up to strangers and holding out her pride and joy. “Lookit,” she says. “My Barbie.”

3:25 A girl who looked like she was about 6 gets escalator fright and decides not to take that first step. This creates a logjam. But nobody seems upset. People who are headed for the parking garage have already done the hard stuff.

3:28 “We’re on Level 3, dad,” a grade-school boy announces as a family troops over to the garage.

A driver on Level 2 is totally blocking traffic as she waits for another family to load their car and pull out - an undertaking that is moving forward at a glacial pace.

3:36 Back in the terminal, a little boy, maybe 5, sees the line forming at the metal detector and yells - really yells - “WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?”

3:50 In the A concourse, a couple of guys with gray hair check out “Baywatch” on one TV while several people watch a report on the Ridpath shootings on another.

4:15 The B concourse is full of people. A man with wire-rim glasses is talking about his new coat longer than is really necessary to answer his seatmate’s question.

4:20 A grim-faced guy nearby becomes about the fourth person overheard this day saying “Well, it would be a big project.”

4:30 Without breaking stride, a woman getting off a flight from Salt Lake City hands off a baby to a smiling older woman who has her arms outstretched.

4:31 Another guy getting off that plane starts heading in the wrong direction and the younger woman there to greet him snaps, “Where are you going?”

4:50 Two young women elsewhere in the concourse are talking about a man. “His features are burned in my memory,” says one.

5:07 A guy on a pay phone is stroking his mustache as he tells someone how to get a computer printer to work.

5:15 Over in the A concourse, an elderly woman points out a men’s room to the elderly man with her. He goes in and emerges about five minutes later, holding a hypodermic syringe.

5:30 A guy carrying two giftwrapped packages sprints the length of the B concourse to make a Seattle flight on Horizon.

5:35 A young woman entertains her companions by reading aloud from The Inlander’s personals.

5:36 A guy who seems to be in no real hurry arrives at a nearby gate and is told, “The door is shut.”

“You’re kidding,” he says, even though his flight was to have taken off already. After a gate agent calls the plane, he’s allowed to board.

5:44 A young bartender on the B concourse poses a hypothetical question to a couple of women who have just ordered diet soft drinks. “Which would you rather be - really, really cold or really, really full?”

5:50 A member of an Alaska Airlines flight crew, a man who looks like he could play a pilot on TV, uses a pay phone to reach a number in Seattle. “I’ll tell you why I’ve called,” he says. “I’ve changed my mind about the engine change.”

5:58 He goes and gets back on his plane. It was never really clear if he was talking about a sports car, a private plane or what.

6:01 A toddler playing with a beverage bottle in a Seattle-flight gate area sing-songs the word “empty” approximately a thousand times.

6:02 It’s dark again and the blue lights out by the runway look like a futuristic electronic crop.

6:15 A little girl breaks away from her mother and goes tearing after her father. He is almost to the jetway leading to a Horizon plane going to Seattle. “Bye, daddy! Bye, daddy! Bye, daddy!”

He turns and fluidly scoops up the child and her stuffed bear.

He gives them an eyes-closed hug. The gate agent, who must have seen similar scenes hundreds of times, makes no attempt to hurry the moment.

6:25 It’s quiet over near where that one family had gathered to send off Grandma 12 hours earlier. A woman reading The Spokesman-Review is the only person in the row where they had been sitting.

Two guys in trench coats walk past with ground-swallowing strides. “I definitely think it was worth the effort to make this trip,” says one.

“I agree,” says the other.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 6 color photos