Fourth Quarter Update

Dear Friends,

Travel started on day two of the new quarter. Was up before 4:30, and out to the airport. I was happy when we were in the air and enroute to Jacksonville a few minutes ahead of schedule. I was bound for Holly Hill, Florida, near Daytona Beach, to lead the memorial service for my Aunt Mildred, who died at age 97. Mil outlived a lot of people. She had no children, no one to step forward. I did not know her well, but, as I spoke in the eulogy, “perhaps well enough to remember a sturdy and decent women who saw nearly all of the last century come and go, and persevered into this new millennium.” The full text is below.

I was soon zipping south on I-95, then into the pelting rain for which Florida is known. But I made good time, and rolled onto the old north-south road, U.S. Highway 1, then into Holly Hill. I drove to the little house that she and Uncle Walter bought in 1962. It looked tidier than when I last saw it in 2003, just before she could no longer live independently. Grabbed a sandwich and milk at Subway; that store had free Wi-Fi, and I worked a bit. I then motored to the Shady Rest Cemetery, a half-mile from their little house. Met Ross, the manager and keeper, a nice fellow.

Soon Edith Pyatt, Aunt Mil’s legal guardian arrived, then Sharon, her caregiver in the last years, and lastly Marion, a pal from the old folks’ home, spunky and wheeling her walker briskly over the uneven ground. We told a couple of stories, and I began the eulogy. Marion chimed affirmation a couple of times. I closed with thanks for all the folks who looked after her in the three decades since Uncle Walter died, and special gratitude for Edie and Sharon. Bless their hearts, they were genuinely caring people. Sharon told of sleeping some nights at the foot of Aunt Mil’s bed, to give her security. Surely an angel.

When I was done, they clapped. I smiled. Marion, who Mil called “Boston” to honor her hometown, started telling a few more stories; she was, I’m sure, a good friend to the end. Before getting in the car, Marion hollered “Boston’s here.” It was all touching, and I am really glad I was able to join her friends and caregivers with a proper sendoff. Drove north, and flew home. Milestones are important.

I have traditionally appended eulogies to this update, and here’s Aunt Mil’s:

A Eulogy for Mildred Orr

1910-2007

Shady Rest Cemetery

Daytona Beach, Florida

October 2, 2007

The call to mark and commemorate the life of Mildred Orr falls to me, a nephew from Dallas, Texas. Let me tell you at the start that I did not know her well – but perhaps well enough to remember a sturdy and decent women who saw nearly all of the last century come and go, and persevered into this new millennium.

Our dear Aunt Mildred was born in 1910, in Wheatland County, Montana, little more than two decades after that still-young state was admitted to the union. Montana was still very much frontier. Albert and Florence Britton’s small house probably lacked indoor plumbing, and certainly did not have electricity.

What change Mildred saw in her near century on this good Earth.

For reasons lost to us, Albert left the young family later that decade, and Mildred grew up without much money and without much other support. Kids learn quickly in those circumstances, and we’re sure that Aunt Mil’s strength, self-reliance, and no-nonsense demeanor was baked in during those hard years.

The path led from the western frontier to Sioux City, Iowa, then to the big city of Chicago. Mildred was a young woman by then, and easily found work.

In September 1936, she married Walter Orr, a small-town Illinois kid who was good in science. Walt graduated in electrical engineering from Purdue University and found a good job with the Zenith Radio Corporation, the Sony or IBM of the time.

Looking at photos from those days, it seems clear that life pretty quickly went from hard to good, even in a nation struggling with the Great Depression and then World War II. We see a car, nice clothing, happy smiles.

Soon the photo album shows a sturdy brick home on Lowell Avenue in a nice neighborhood of northwest Chicago, and now I entered their lives, though in an infrequent way, and can recall a little of her life from experience rather than images or from others’ memory.

Our family – Mom, Dad, big brother Jim and I – would visit a couple of times a year, driving down from Minneapolis in my Dad’s Oldsmobile. It was usually holiday time, and I recall Mildred in a festive mood. The temperance-minded must forgive me, but the clearest scene has Aunt Mil, Uncle Walter, and my mom and dad in their bright, fluorescently-lit kitchen, having a highball. That’s what Millie called them, highballs. She also had an L&M handy.

They were laughing and telling stories. It was a happy time for all of them. There was comfort and plenty and freedom, precious things that just a decade or two earlier were either nonexistent or threatened.

Mildred and Walter were careful with their money, and they were able to do something common today but unheard of in 1962: they retired in their 50s, way early.

For them, retirement meant big change: a move to Florida. It’s not quite right to call them pioneers, for Walter’s father and stepmother had moved to Holly Hill in 1923. The Orrs were, of course, on the leading edge of a north-to-south migration that has filled this Sunshine State with millions of elders.

Walter and Millie bought a tidy house on 15^th Street in Holly Hill, and they sent pictures north, to us freezing on the Minnesota tundra, of shirtsleeves in December, of orange and grapefruit trees in the backyard, of a boat on the Intracoastal Waterway.

We had to see this paradise firsthand, and in 1964 we loaded up dad’s blue Oldsmobile and motored here. Wow, we thought, it was all true. Citrus fruit to be picked in the backyard, a splendid beach stretching for miles, fresh seafood to be savored after a ride on Uncle Walter’s cruiser. Aunt Mil was happy. And why not?

That was nearly fifty years ago, a long time. Life seemed to chug along back then. Mildred lost Walter in 1977, but kept on, mostly alone, propelled forward by self-reliance and the other things she learned decades earlier, out West.

Most important, she kept her humor. When I last saw her a few years ago, I was struck by her joshing, and her ability to kid people, something she shared with her kid brother, my dad.

So we come now to an ending, to say good-bye, and to pause and think about a life well lived.

Before we do, we thank with our hearts all those who befriended and helped Mildred over the three decades since Walter’s death, kind people in their neighborhood in Holly Hill, and particularly those most recently: Sharon and the other kind folks at the hospice, her guardian Edie Pyatt, and others of whom I am not aware.

Rest in peace, Millie.

Two afternoons later, I flew to Northwest Arkansas, to a place booming in large part because it is home to Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, and some other big companies. I was there to give a lunchtime talk the next day to the local ad club. Met my host, Jim Burns, and we were off to the Holiday Inn in Springfield. Dropped bags and headed to dinner in Fayetteville, a Cajun place, where Jim’s boss, Jeff Wood, was waiting. We had a nice dinner. Note to self to do more overnight trips to these non-school speaking gigs, for a little more time to look around.

Woke up on October 5 to mark my 20^th anniversary at American Airlines. What a ride! I ambled a block to the Waffle House, that great Southern breakfast institution, with memories of those two decades flooding in. I remember arriving that afternoon in ‘87, excited and a little scared. I remember a few weeks later, at the end of American’s annual Fall Management Conference, I introduced myself to Bob Crandall, then the Chairman, who would become my boss 1996-98. He welcomed me, and a week or two later sent me a note hoping that my career at American would be “everything you want it to be.” Indeed, it has been just that. There have been different jobs, different crises, many friendships made, profits and plenty of losses – and always, always change.

The Waffle House was buzzing, in part with the training of three new servers. The veterans were schooling the newbies in the technique and nuance of “calling,” which is pretty much yelling the orders to the two cooks at the grills. The jargon was wonderful. “Drop a scrambled,” “Two smothered, one covered.” I remarked to the older couple next to me that this was better than television (a comment I last offered at the Reading train station seven weeks earlier). I thought a bit about the contrast between my 20 years at one job and the three new employees. Was theirs a short-term assignment? Where would they be in 20 years? The best thing I could do was leave a good tip for my first-day server, Kimberly, smile, and depart.

At 11, Jim picked me up and we drove across Springdale to the Jones Family Center, a community center endowed by a trucking-line family. Turnout for the lunch was small, about 18, but nice folks with good questions. After the talk, Jim drove me back to the airport and I flew home. At DFW, with all the Silver Birds, I again thought about these 20 years, and how the decision to join American Airlines in 1987 was a great one.

Two days later, on Sunday the 7^th, I got up before six, pounded out 16 miles in the dark, drove to DFW, and flew to Madison, Wisconsin, for lectures at the University of Wisconsin. In my college years, I had passed through Madison many times as a hitchhiker (including an overnight under a freeway bridge east of town in September 1973), but I had not been there in years, and was pretty pumped, because it’s a cool town and a great university.

Arrived about noon and jumped in Dan Curtis’ cab. We had a good yak on various topics (a few hours later I sent him a PDF of one of my lectures – he was curious about the goofy airline business). He dropped me at my digs, a very fancy UW executive-education hotel called the Fluno Center, nicely decorated in arts-and-crafts style. I changed clothes and zipped out the door, heading northwest, toward Lake Mendota. I passed Science Hall, a brick Victorian beauty that was the graduate-school home to my late mentor John Borchert (Ph.D., Wisconsin, 1949), and headed onto the State Street Mall, where some sort of legalize-marijuana fair was in progress. Something for everyone; this place is, after all, nicknamed Mad City. I walked along a lakeshore nature preserve, then into Frank’s Place, the dining hall of a dorm complex. It had been awhile since I had eaten in a college dorm! Naturally, the beverage of choice was milk from UW’s own dairy.

Fortified, I pressed on, and passed both the dairy and the old Wisconsin Dairy Barn, a National Historic Landmark. This is a huge campus, and it took me awhile to reach my destination, McClimon Field, where I met friend-since-1963 Tom Terry and his wife Gara Gehring. Their daughter Shannon was on the field, #14, playing defense for the UW women’s varsity soccer team. The match against Ohio State started at two, and we were pumped up! The Badgers were 0-3 in Big Ten play, but the game got off to a good start, and soon our heroes were ahead 1-0, which is how it ended. Tom and Gara claimed that I brought the team good luck, and urged me to return for another home game.

This was Title IX in action. For my non-U.S. readers, Title IX was a brilliant piece of legislation, part of the Federal Education Amendments of 1972, which simply stated that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of gender, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." As a practical matter, it required that colleges and universities that got Federal money needed to fund women’s sports. And why not? Where is it written that all of athletics belongs to men?

During the game, Tom, Gara, and I got caught up; I had not yakked with them for a long time. After the game, the loudspeakers played the UW fight song, “On Wisconsin,” and we sang along (Minnesota is next door, and I have a long history in the Badger State). We walked down to the field, where Shannon was signing autographs for little girls in soccer uniforms. Right there in front of us was the sprit of equal opportunity, and it was a wonderful thing. It was quite an afternoon – I even got my picture taken with UW mascot Bucky Beaver!

I walked with Tom and Gara to their car, said goodbye, and walked back along the lake. I ambled into the Wisconsin Memorial Union, the student center, and got a beer in the Rathskeller. Yep, a large cup of Capital Brewery Oktoberfest. This was Wisconsin, after all. I told the bartender I had been waiting decades for that opportunity! The Rathskeller, opened in 1928, was an interesting place, but the terrace facing the lake was better, and I plopped down beneath a huge oak tree to survey the scene: students, families, boaters, all enjoying a splendidly warm autumn day. My table was actually adjacent to the Memorial Union Brat Stand, but it was closed for the season. A couple hundred feet offshore was a sailboat hull painted like a black and white Holstein cow. Only in Wisconsin.

Next morning I was up early and out for a walk around the west end of campus. Met my host, Jan Heide, for breakfast at eight. I first met Jan about a year earlier, in Cambridge (where he was on sabbatical), and expressed interest in lecturing at another Big Ten school. We had a good yak about the business school, Madison, and the university. Jan grew up in a small town on the Norwegian coast, not far from Trondheim. We ambled up to school, I delivered a couple of lectures to MBA students, and the morning was gone. Grabbed a quick sandwich in Jan’s office, and headed back to my hotel room. Worked a bit, changed into khakis and a T-shirt (it was still hot), and headed out to see two things.

Thing 1 was Monona Terrace, Madison’s new convention center, based on a Frank Lloyd Wright design. Very cool, right on Monona, the city’s other big lake. Thing 2 was the colossal state capitol, a century old, and easily the most impressive state building in the entire nation. Its rotunda is bigger than the U.S. capitol in Washington, and it is really fitted out, lots of gold leaf, marble, mosaic. I joined the 3 p.m. building tour, and enjoyed an animated and knowledgeable guide, an older guy who gave a really good show. What was the coolest was that we got to sit down in all the major rooms – like in the Governor’s ornate conference room, modeled on space in the Doges Palace in Venice. This was democratic and egalitarian, having easy access to many parts of the building, to our institutions of government. It made me proud to be an American.

Visiting the seat of Wisconsin government was like the beer the day earlier – I had waited a long time to get there. As a child, I remember frequently passing through, and sometimes around, a much-smaller Madison, enroute to see grandparents in Chicago. I would sometimes see the huge capitol dome in the distance and ask my Dad, “Can we stop?” He was usually in a hurry to get to his kin, so we never did. Finally I was there. I smiled, and looked up.

At 6:30, I gave a talk to Mu Kappa Tau (MKT), the undergraduate marketing club, a much younger audience, but still bright kids. After the talk, Jan, a colleague David Schwedel, and I ambled up State Street to dinner at the Tornado Room, a funky steak house, for a couple of pints of New Glarus Staghorn beer and a nice walleye meal (the others both had steaks). The heat had finally broken, and the walk back to the hotel was very pleasant. Said goodbye to Jan, and headed to bed. Up next morning way early, and back in the office by ten. It’s always been a joy to visit Wisconsin.

Two days later, I flew south to Austin, the Madison of Texas. Very similar places, state capitals with large, capable public universities. Hopped on the Airport Flyer bus and was downtown in 20 minutes, ambling west to my hotel on the edge of the UT campus. At 7:30, host Wayne Hoyer pulled up in his new BMW, and we zipped south to Mars, the restaurant. His wife Shirley arrived a few minutes later and I got a full report on their year in Germany; Wayne was on sabbatical and attached to Mannheim University.

Next morning I was up early and ambled around campus a bit. UT has a marvelous set of interwar buildings, and they have lots of architectural detail. It’s a pleasure to be there. At 8:30, it was time for my third appearance in Wayne’s Customer Strategy class for second-year MBAs. Session theme was government relations in international business. Two Dell guys led off, interesting stuff, and then it was my turn. A good session. Hopped the bus back to AUS and flew north.

Wayne’s allergies might have actually been a cold, because I had one by that night, the first one in about 20 months (knock on wood). But I felt sorta bad on the 13-hour flight from DFW to Tokyo that Sunday. “The show must go on” was the theme, and I powered forward.

We landed about 3 on Monday (crossing the date line does that). The AA airport manager had dispatched a greeter. At first I was embarrassed by the attention, but she turned out to be indispensable. The connecting JAL flight to Seoul was full, and even though the new kind of airline employee pass, called ZED, is interchangeable among virtually all larger airlines, Korean Air did not want to accept my ticket. It took two faxes, three phone calls, and one rubber stamp to convince the Koreans of something to which they had contractually agreed. The greeter and a capable AA ticket agent, Ms. Onose, saved the day. I actually caught an earlier flight, and was in central Seoul by nine, and at the Yonsei University guest house by ten. By then I was worn out. And not feeling great.

I got through Tuesday’s lectures with naps in between. Fever was sorta bothersome. I felt a little better by dusk, and headed into downtown for a brief walk around. It was not an especially informative visit. Was up at 5:45 on Wednesday morning, down the hill and out to the airport. Again the JAL flight was full, so I flew Korean back to Tokyo. Hopped on the Narita Express and was back in a familiar pattern, checking into the New Otani Hotel. Grabbed lunch and a quick nap, and at four I met my Wharton classmate John Vandenbrink, with whom Jack and I lunched on our March visit to Tokyo. John had just begun as a part-time Finance prof. at Tsukuba (pronounced a bit like “scuba”). I gave a faculty seminar at 5, but the big show were two back-to-back lectures from 6:30 to 9. It was an evening MBA program, and most of the students had day jobs, but they were interested and fully engaged. In no time, John and a subset of students – about 15 of us – were in a Japanese restaurant drinking beer and eating a light meal, students continuing to fire questions. A nice group of young people. Rode the Metro back to my hotel and hit the pillow. Unfortunately, the fever came back that night, but I still slept hard.

Thursday morning was down to Satsuki, one of the vast hotel’s many restaurants, for a big breakfast. Their buffet may be one of my favorite recurring meals anywhere. I first load up a big plate of Japanese food – rice porridge, fish, greens, a slightly-raw egg in miso. The Japanese couple next to me murmured approval of my choice! Then fruit, then a big bowl of cereal. Fortified, I walked a couple of miles to the Diet, the Japanese parliament. As I have written before, democratic institutions there were a happy result of our victory in World War II. But I could not get inside the building without either knowing a representative (unlikely!) or completing an application in advance. This was not the Wisconsin Capitol visited 11 days earlier, when anyone could walk in from the street and sit down at the governor’s conference table. Wandered around the government quarter a bit more. There were some ominous, Orwellian police vans on side streets. This was not the United States. Final stop was a wonderful 1895 red-brick building, originally the Ministry of Justice, designed by two German architects in a late-baroque style; it was a perfect symbol of the opening of Japan to new ways and new ideas during the Meiji period.

At noon I joined a set of Tsukuba faculty for lunch and a chat. A nice group. After lunch, I yakked briefly with John, and he provided a gloomy overview of Japanese higher education, which is retrenching because there are not enough students. This is yet another manifestation of Japan’s demographic challenge. One-child households do not provide the foundation for growth, or even staying in place.

John walked me to the Metro station, where schoolkids in uniform, many of whom looked to be as young as seven, were riding the Japanese equivalent of the school bus home. The sight was a reminder of Tokyo’s amazing safety, as well as Japanese parents’ encouragement of self-reliance early in life. Even if the U.S. were as safe, one could not imagine overprotective American parents sending seven-year-olds to the subway.

I hopped a train to Akihabara, the center of electronics retailing, then headed out to the airport. Flew home, sweating much of the way from fever. I was happy to land on a perfectly clear Texas afternoon, low 80s, low humidity. Stopped at the office, drove home, and took MacKenzie out for a walk. That amble alone was therapeutic. Such a day, such a friend.

The next day, our family doc, Dr. Jeffery, checked me out, diagnosed a bacterial infection, prescribed some powerful $11-a-tablet antibiotics, and sent me home. Checked the Toyota oil, filled the windshield-washer tank, and Linda and I headed northeast on I-30 into Arkansas, bound for friends Missy and Tim Griffy’s lake house near Hot Springs. We had visited two years earlier, and really enjoyed it. The drive was routine – though even at 300 miles, I was reminded of the genius of jet aircraft! We arrived about 6:45. Phil and Susie Conway, other former neighbors, were already there. We had a beer and headed out for Mexican food. Two other friends, Hal and Jill Hickey, arrived.

The men were out the door early the next morning, a gloriously cool, clear day, and on the course at the Hot Springs Country Club by 8:10. This non-golfer was nominally the caddy. I tag along about once a year, always enjoy it, and that day was no exception. Lovely course, fresh air, plenty of joshing (and yakking with Tim, a fellow traveler). Had a burger in the clubhouse, headed back to the lake, exercised a bit, and at four we headed out for a boat ride on this dammed section of the Ouachita River. Very scenic, though quite developed. Big steak dinner that night, way full.

After a fun and noisy breakfast (all four couples have sons who are friends of Jack), Linda and I drive home on Sunday. Changed suitcases, repacked, and headed to London. Fortunately, the meds had kicked in, and I was feeling much better. Arrived London at dawn, chilly. Took the train to Victoria Station, and walked a couple of miles north to my noontime teaching gig at London Business School, marveling at London’s increasing affluence. I had not been at LBS in nearly three years, and it was good to be back. I was the kickoff speaker for the Marketing Club’s mid-day series, and the session was well attended, about 65.

After the talk, I had a nice chat with a student, Rohan, typical of the kids I meet at schools. He was from India and got his undergrad degree there, then an engineering master’s at Dartmouth (“I learned to ski as a way to meet winter head-on,” he said). I asked him if he was going back to India or back to America after he finished his London MBA. He replied, “What is back? I live in the whole world!” Indeed.

I hopped the Tube three stations east, then the nonstop train to Cambridge, and was in the Senior Guest Room at Sidney Sussex College by four. Unpacked and headed into town. It was my fifth teaching visit, and, as always, great to be in that iconic college town. Worked my e-mail, admired the new titles in the window of the Cambridge University Press shop, and at six headed over to the Eagle pub for a pint of Bomber County ale. The WW2-era Boeing B-24 Liberator on the beer pull caught my eye (you recall that this part of the world was one massive air base in the early 1940s, and that the Eagle was a refuge for airman on leave). On the way out, I noticed a picture of another former Eagle patron, Isaac Newton. Whoa! Had a spicy dinner at The Curry King, worked my e-mail to zero, and clocked out.

The hot water in my room was still not working, so morning ablutions were bracing. Not a big deal. At eight, I had breakfast in the main dining hall (circa 1598) with the college’s senior tutor, Rev. Keith Straughan. Returning twice a year was making me recognizable, and we had a nice chat. A good fellow. Headed over to Judge Business School and met host Simon Bell for a coffee. Worked my e-mail, grabbed a quick lunch, and delivered a compact “performance” from one to two. Did a bit more work in Simon’s office and at four walked back to college, stopping for daily prayers (as I have on previous trips) at St. Botolph’s parish church on Trumpington Street, a place of worship for almost 700 years. In the narthex, I learned that Botolph – an uncommon name, to be sure – is the patron saint of travelers. Clearly the place is magnetic!

Changed clothes and went out for a brisk walk in the low sun, mainly along the River Cam. A few punters were plying the tourist trade. The sluice and lock that I passed while running in June now looked much more familiar, and I longed for a boat so I could lock through. People were walking dogs on the huge Jesus Green, and I wanted to hail one as surrogate for our beloved MacKenzie. After five, I paused for a half-pint of bitter at The Mitre, born 1754 and thus a young pub compared to The Eagle. Back at college, I asked the porters about Remembrance Poppies, the red paper flowers used to raise funds for needy veterans (I bought one there in 2006), and they said they expected them in a few days. Too bad to miss them – they’re harder to find in the U.S.

At 7:30, I met Simon and 13 students – a larger group than usual – for dinner at the wonderful Loch Fyne seafood restaurant near the business school. And as usual, the group was diverse; this year’s MBA class at Judge hails from 46 countries, and we had folks from 11 nations at table. With a bigger group, I changed seats a couple of times to try to get to know Divya, an engineer from Chennai with a broad smile; Ehud, formerly in Israeli intelligence; David from D.C., who knows AA’s SVP there; Katherine from Hockey Town, Ontario; Francisco, a new father from Seville; Tao from Shanghai; Lei, whose parents emigrated from there to suburban Detroit in the 1980s; Scott the Aussie; Tim, who left Liverpool to teach English for a year in Tokyo and ended up a marketing manager at Toyota; Gary, a Cornell undergrad and the class chronicler; Justin from San Francisco, owner of a 180-pound Newfoundland dog; Meropi from Greece; and Natalie, who went from a small town in the south of France to eight years in China with Carrefour, the French retail giant. They were, once again, the leading edge of globalization. Just fascinating.

Clocked out at 10:30, up six hours later, brisk walk to the train station, two trains and a plane, and I was in my office by 4. It was all good, but I was glad to be done with travel for almost three weeks. MacKenzie was pretty happy, too.

Those days passed quickly, and on Veterans’ Day, Sunday the 11^th, I winged north to Chicago. I got up early that morning, took Mac for a walk, pounded out 21 miles on the bike, and went to church. Among the first orders in worship was to recognize the veterans in the sanctuary. We applauded long and loud. During the clapping, I looked up and through an open window to blue sky and beyond, to where Captain Britton now lives. Thanks were for him, too.

On the flight to Chicago I read a couple dozen short essays on the American Idea in the 150^th anniversary issue of The Atlantic. Some real gems in that collection, celebrating the best of this place. Novelist Tom Wolfe’s essay, which appeared last, was especially good. He wrote:

America remains, as it has been from the very beginning, the freest, most open country in the world, encouraging one and all to compete pell-mell for any great goal that exists and to try every sort of innovation, no matter how far-fetched it may seem, in order to achieve it.

I looked out the window. Below were rolling hills and woods in Missouri, a beautiful landscape. This was, and remains, a land worth fighting for. Thanks to all who have done so, to preserve the nation and its ideals.

Landed at O’Hare at four, well before my flight to Dublin at 7:20. Zip, across the Atlantic, for my 125^th visit to the Old World. Landed at 8:30 and was in my hotel room by 9:30; hooray for early check-in at the Crowne Plaza. My lectures at Dublin City University (DCU) were not until the next day, which meant I had the day off. The original plan was to meet up with an old oneworld colleague, Maurice Coleman, now retired from Aer Lingus, but he left word at the hotel reception that he was ill. So I was on my own. Rode an exercise bike, showered, and took the 16A bus into the city. The ride provided ample evidence of the Polish presence (thanks to open EU immigration policy), both in the many passenger conversations in that tongue and the several Polish food stores and meat markets we passed along the way. I also spotted the B&B on Drumcondra Street where I stayed on my first visit in 1987, and Kennedy’s pub down the street.

I got off the bus on O’Connell, Dublin’s “main street,” ambled across the River Liffey, and into Trinity College. It was a commencement day, and students in caps and gowns (with fur trim) and proud parents and friends were everywhere. I grabbed a quick lunch in the student center and walked on, past the Dail, the Irish parliament, through St. Stephen’s Green, past the wonderful City Hall, built in the former Royal Exchange (1799), with one of Dublin’s finest interiors. The city grew in Georgian times, and there are many wonderful buildings from that period.

My nose told me I was getting close to my last stop. The pungent, grainy smell of a brewery told me I was close to Guinness’ original St. James Gate Brewery, from 1759. When I visited two decades earlier, I fell in with a group from Kingston, Ontario, and they invited me to an arranged lunch and tour of the place, all compliments of the brewer. Now they proposed to charge €14 (more than twenty bucks) for a tour and a chance to buy stuff. I stopped at the “free” store, bought some postcards, and moved on. I noticed there and elsewhere in Dublin that the Irish have taken to charging for admission to places of visitor interest, even old churches. Clever on the one hand. On the other, the old cheapskate backpacker in me said these things ought to be free. Near the brewery, I spotted a tall brick tower. A plaque on a nearby building identified as the 1757 St. Patrick’s Tower, the tallest “smock windmill” in Europe. The next day, I Googled that term, and learned that these structures were thought to resemble millers’ frocks. The mill’s sails were long gone.

I walked down the hill and along the Liffey. It was three, and the sun, low on the southern horizon, was soon to set. Short days – and still 39 days until the solstice. Stopped for a coffee and a rest, and hopped the 16 bus back to the hotel. Oops, the 16A or 16B was what I wanted. Sixteen without the letter dropped me a couple of miles from the hotel. I got back and worked my e-mail. Revived, I set out, again on foot, for the closest real pub, O’Mara’s The Comet, which I spotted on the bus ride into town. It was a couple of miles, but worth it. Inside, a wide spectrum of Irish tipplers. Every city I visit, from Shanghai to Warsaw to Buenos Aires has an “Irish pub,” but here was the real McCoy! Had a pint of Guinness – what else? – propped on a stool, and goggled at the scene. Ambled back to the hotel (daily total on foot, more than 10 miles), had a pseudo-Asian meal, and clocked out. Slept hard for five hours until the drunken guests in the hall woke me. Despite two calls to the front desk, they carried on until past five, when I resumed the doze.

Up at 7:30, breakfast, and out the door on foot, back toward the pub, but west on Shanowen Road and south to DCU. This was a “new” university, opened in 1980, larger and more accessible than Trinity, and firmly focused on preparing students for careers. I ambled around the campus, then headed to the library to bring this journal up to date. At 11:15, I met my host, Naoimh (pronounced “Neeve”) O’Reilly, a smiling young lecturer in the business school. We got on instantly, yakking about the school, family (she had a two-year-old daughter), and other stuff. At 12:15, we met three other faculty, Bernadette McCulloch, Pierre McDonagh, and John Connolly, and had an enjoyable lunch in 1838, the faculty dining room built on the site of an agricultural training school opened in that year (the back of the menu showed times and activities in a typical day, starting at 5:30).

I gave my first lecture to daytime MBAs at two, spoke to some very young undergraduates at four, and to evening MBAs at six. Bright students all, especially the last group, who, as is usual, were older and motivated. After that talk, we repaired to a cafeteria for one-on-one chats, then Naoimh and I headed to Fagan’s, an atmospheric pub on the north end of central Dublin. This was the Taoiseach’s favorite pub. Bertie Ahern is the Taoiseach (Gaelic, pronounced “TEE-shuck), the Irish Prime Minister. We didn’t see Bertie, but I enjoyed another pint of Guinness while Naoimh offered a primer on two uniquely Irish sports, GAA football (a bit like Australian Rules), and something completely foreign, hurling, played with a small ball. At nine she dropped me at the hotel, I worked my e-mail, called home, and clocked out.

Up at 5:15, breakfast, shuttle to the airport, and a flight on Ryanair, the Southwest Airlines of Europe. We departed 15 minutes late, because a couple of burly ramp managers removed eight Polish lads who were already drunk and making a ruckus. I didn’t think they were behaving that badly, but the captain apparently wanted them off. Ryanair makes a lot of money selling stuff onboard, including gambling scratch cards, and the constant hawking PAs were annoying. But the ticket price was under $30!

Arrived at London’s fourth airport, Luton, which is farther from the city than I thought. It took about an hour on the train. I hopped the Tube to Holborn, ambled down Kingsway, and met my London School of Economics host, Sir Geoffrey Owen, at 12:25. A quick lunch and into class at one. This was my sixth time, and I knew the drill. I then met with a smaller group of students for 75 minutes, members of the “American Airlines team,” charged with researching and reporting on a strategy issue of their choosing.

At 3:45 I was in the renovated St. Pancras Station, a Victorian gem, under a huge glass and steel train shed that at one time was the largest enclosed space in the world. The arcing steel girders had been sandblasted and painted periwinkle blue, a lovely color. At the bottom of each were details on the maker: “Butterley, Derbyshire, 1867”. Preserving the past is something the Brits do better than almost anyone.

St. Pancras (named, by the way, for a teenager beheaded in Rome in 304 for proclaiming his Christianity) was the new departure point for the Eurostar high-speed trains to Paris and Brussels. This was the first day from this new station, and the launch day for the high-speed line within the U.K. – for more than a decade the Eurostar trudged through England, then went 180 mph in France. My journey was under 2½ hours downtown to downtown, an hour faster than before. Even this airline guy understood the achievement – they are going to grab a lot of the market from BA and other airlines.

At Paris Gare du Nord, the “fun” began. I was headed to INSEAD in Fontainebleau, 60 km. southeast. A week earlier, my host’s able assistant, Joelle Fabert, sent word of a train strike on the days of my visit. Earlier that day, Joelle and I exchanged e-mails and phone calls to get updates, and we more or less had a plan. The challenge was to change train stations, from Nord to Gare de Lyon. I first walked to the RER, the suburban train, but it was not running at all. I then headed outside to the taxi rank, where hundreds of people were queuing. Nope. Plan C was the Metro – it should have been Plan A. A helpful young guy who spoke English offered directions: line 4 to Chatelet, then line 1 east to Gare de Lyon. Took a bit longer, but I got there. It was eerily quiet. The TGV trains sat dark on the rails. But the signboard said there was a train to Melun (eight miles from Fontainebleau, close enough) at 20:59, and I jumped on an almost-empty 12-car train. I called Joelle with an update, then sent a text message to Mr. Raoult, the taxi driver who I knew from previous visits – a message in broken, written French was far better than trying to speak to him. He was at Melun, and in no time we were at the Hotel Mercure, two blocks from INSEAD. It really wasn’t so bad.

Up the next morning and over to campus. Joelle found me an office, and I sat down to work. Met Xavier Drèze, visiting from Wharton, and we had a nice lunch. A bit later I met my host, another visitor, Kyle Murray, a young prof from the University of Western Ontario’s highly regarded Ivey School of Business. Taught two sections of his MBA Intro Marketing class. These were really bright, engaged, talkative students, a few with an air of confidence verging toward arrogance. But better that than silence! The time went quickly. At 7:30, dropped my backpack at the hotel, and Kyle and I headed to dinner at Chez Bernard. Serendip, o serendip: it was the launch day for the 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau, and everyone in the place was in a festive mood. A smiling fellow handed us complimentary glasses before we had even closed the door, then passed plates of homemade sausage. An accordionist played. It was great. There was a special menu, and both the appetizer and dessert courses were buffet style, allowing samples of many dishes. In between, slow-roasted wild boar from the nearby King’s Forest. Awesome. Kyle and I had a good yak; he’s from Alberta, and is headed back to the U of A after three months in France.

Was up at 5:40 on Friday the 16^th. Hopped the bus to the Avon train station east of Fontainebleau. The 6:39 train arrived a bit late, and it was packed. I stood in the vestibule for 40 minutes, wedged so tightly that I did not need a handrail. We arrived Gare de Lyon six minutes late. I hustled down stairs to the RER, which was supposed to be running, but it looked dead. Then to the Metro, which seemed to be running, but with a hundred people in a mass ahead of me. Plan C, taxi. It took 15 minutes to get a cab, then 15 minutes (thanks to a very skillful driver) to Gare du Nord, arriving four minutes after the 8:07 Eurostar departed. Happily, the ticket lady exchanged my non-exchangeable ticket for the 9:07 train. Things were improving.

I headed out of the station to find some bread, scolding myself for not taking pictures in France. Then, voila, appears a nice scene, morning light on statues and a French flag atop the station façade. I smiled. I was back in the travel groove. I do not like to be out of that groove! We departed right on time, rolling north through the suburbs. As we passed Charles de Gaulle airport, an American Airlines 767 glided 300 feet above. I took it as a further sign of being in the groove.

We arrived London right on time, I hopped on the Tube, and was at Cass Business School by eleven. Worked my e-mail for an hour and delivered the last of the week’s seven lectures. Felt pretty good about the talks. Hopped on the Tube and all was well until I got to Paddington Station and learned that the Heathrow Express was not running because a train hit a person. Was I out of the groove again?

Quickly ambled back to the Tube and headed to the Piccadilly Line, which runs slow trains to the airport. That line was also a mess, with long delays because of a signal malfunction. While poking west toward the runways, I spoke by phone with an AA friend (she runs the Heathrow ramp operation) that my flight was four hours late – which meant that I was not going to get home that night. But I was back in the groove, and was not going to let a mere delay eject me from the groove.

Finally got to the airport, checked in, got a late lunch, and met my AA colleague, Hilary Doyle. We had a good yak. Worked my e-mail in the Admirals Club, and took off at 8:20 PM for Chicago. A long day, to be longer. Arrived O’Hare about eleven, whizzed through Customs and was at Cousin Jim’s house – only 12 miles from ORD – by midnight. We visited a bit, and I collapsed. Woke at five, worked my e-mail, had a bowl of cereal with his kids, zoomed back to the airport, and was home by noon. MacKenzie and Linda were happy to see me. And vice-versa.

Rinse, repeat. Was up at five the next morning, Sunday the 18^th, and flew to New York, landing at eleven. Had a nice T-t-S moment with a Bangladeshi taxi driver, in the country six years and already a homeowner, thanks to a good job as a NYPD traffic cop and moonlighting as a cabbie. What a great country! He dropped me in 10 minutes at the Jackson Heights subway station, and I was in midtown in no time.

Ambled into Grand Central, then around the corner to the Grand Hyatt, for my third appearance at the Business Today International Conference, organized by Princeton students. First order of business was lunch, and I had the good fortune to sit next to Paul Tylkin, a very bright and very motivated Penn student, concurrently earning a Master’s in math and a Wharton B.S. And paying for it himself. A truly remarkable fellow. The post-lunch speaker was the CEO of Bayer USA, a very interesting German guy. It was all about applied science. Delivered my seminar to a dozen students in mid-afternoon, ambled over to my hotel, checked in, took a brief nap, and headed back to the Hyatt for dinner. Another interesting table of students, a good dinner, but an unending speaker. Bedtime. The evening high point may well have been gazing up at the soaring ceiling of Grand Central Terminal. I never tire of that place.

Up the next morning, back to the Hyatt for breakfast, holding forth on the airline business with a group of ten at a big table, lots of fun. Worked my e-mail, ate lunch with more students, and headed out to LaGuardia. It’s probably a sign of too much travel that I messed up and booked the return flight for the next day, but I was able to shoehorn myself onto a flight, and was home, finally, by eight.

Robin arrived the next day. I picked her up at DFW, and while I was waiting for her, I was reminded of my wise decision to spend my working life in the airline business. The reminders were all the families and friends hugging each other on the eve of Thanksgiving. We had a great weekend, meals, friends, family.

On Thursday the 29^th, I flew to LaGuardia again. Landed before six, and hopped onto the M60 bus for the Bronx and Manhattan. I should have taken a photo onboard, an E pluribus unum scene if there ever was one. The bus was totally packed with a rainbow of people. Traffic was clogged, but we made our way across the East River and onto 125^th Street. Harlem. Way cool. We passed the Apollo Theater, marquee blazing with light. Lurched along, slowly, turned left onto Amsterdam Avenue, and along the west edge of the Columbia University campus. I hopped off at 116^th and Broadway. The Transport Geek regretted that he did not walk to the front door and thank the driver, for she had a challenging job, and did it superbly.

The $2 fare included a free transfer to the subway. Ambled down the stairs and onto the #1 line, riding several stops to 72^nd Street. Walked south to 70^th, then west, almost to the Hudson River, then south to Tim and Missy Griffy’s new house. You’ll recall the Griffys, superb and welcoming hosts when they lived in London, and the folks who we visited in October at their lake house in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Tim’s Ernst & Young assignment is now in the Big Apple, and they’re living in a Donald Trump highrise with a superb view west. To me, though, the best view was onto the floor, where their swell dogs, Jenny and Marjo, held forth. Jenny is getting old and did not remember that I was the guy who often took her for walks through London. But she loved fetching her hard blue ball as Tim, daughter Claire, and I watched the Dallas Cowboys on TV. Great fun.

Up at seven the next morning, and out the door with Tim, onto the Trump shuttle bus to the 72^nd Street subway station, then south. Tim got off at Times Square, and I rode downtown, to Franklin Street in Tribeca. When I surfaced, a very cool landscape stood before me: late 19^th- and early 20^th-century commercial buildings and warehouses. I ambled around, snapped some pictures, and headed into a café for a cup of coffee. At 8:40 I walked west to the offices of Imagination, a very hip ad agency that just landed the business for the oneworld alliance. My job for the day was to present a seminar on the airline business, airline advertising, and airline alliances. It was great fun. There were seven students, including the CEO. Great discussions, lots of energy and excitement about their new client. Finished just before four, walked north to Canal Street, and down to the E Train for Jackson Heights. Why ride a taxi and get stuck in traffic when you glide below New York? At Jackson Heights it was the Q33 bus to LaGuardia, then American flight 785, landing back in Texas at 9:15. A good day.

On Wednesday the 5^th I ambled out of the house (MacKenzie was gloomy; she knows when I pull out the suitcase she will have less fun for awhile) and in mid-afternoon flew to Frankfurt. It was the start of my last teaching trip of ’07, to schools 35, 36, and 37. Whew! First stop was to see my old friend Manfred Krafft, chair of the Marketing Department at WWU, the large public university in Münster, in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia. We landed FRA way early, and I had time for a shower and to work my e-mail. Hopped on the 8:32 high-speed ICE train for Cologne, and in no time we were whizzing past traffic on the autobahn. They drive fast in Germany, but these trains, at 150 mph or more, are yet faster; the Audis and Porsches were decidedly in the slow lane. The transport geek was smiling broadly, for the experience, and for the Germans, who understand that investment in transport infrastructure is vital to post-industrial economies. Note to Washington: Yes, it takes money. The ride is zippy, but you can still see cool stuff along the way, small villages, ochre-colored castles with black towers, small but dense forests, and more. I had the tunes cranked way up on my headphones as we sped north; nothing like Motown tunes like “Heat Wave” to get you fired up!

I changed trains in the shadow of Cologne’s awesome, huge cathedral, and arrived in Münster at 11:30. Once again, this was just-in-time teaching: class started at 12:15. Stand and deliver! Manfred picked me up and we drove to his office for a quick coffee, then walked to a large lecture hall for a presentation on airline pricing to about 100 students. Time for lunch, and we walked through a steady rain to the Kleine Kiepenkerl, for a plate of grunkohl – German soul food much like collard greens, plus a sausage, a piece of ham, and, of course, a beer. One of Manfred’s new doctoral students, Tobias Fredebeul-Krein, came along, and we had a good chat.

When we left, it was raining really hard, and even with umbrellas we were pretty wet by the time we got back to Manfred’s office. Worked my e-mail, did some Christmas shopping online, and at 5:40 Manfred drove me back to the station for the 6:03 train. Once rolling, I pulled out my laptop and my Bose headphones for some more energizing Motown. In less than a minute, the older woman next to me got up to move; she indicated that the music, barely audible through the thick earpads, disturbed her. A first.

The trip back to Frankfurt reversed the morning route, but was not as smooth. We were about an hour late, and I was tired and cranky by the time I got to my airport-hotel room. Rather than pay really inflated prices for a light meal, I ambled three minutes to an Esso station and picked up a sandwich, small salad, and a beer for the equivalent of $7. Ate in my room, called home, and clocked out.

Next morning, I headed back to the terminal and flew Lufthansa to St. Petersburg and my first trip to Russia, to teach in the Stockholm School of Economic-Russia’s executive MBA program. I was excited. We landed on time, a driver picked me up (very deluxe!), and soon we were lurching into the city in heavy traffic. Early on, I asked her if she spoke English, and she said “no.” But five minutes later, she asked “are you here to teach?” Still, there were not many words along the way. We passed many interesting sights: 1920s apartments, built with style and ornamentation intended to demonstrate socialism's humanist values (the newer ones closer to the airport looked more like the spare concrete boxes we associate with postwar Soviet housing); a huge monument to World War II; ad kiosks topped with the logo of their new owners, Clear Channel or News Corp., and more.

I checked in at Korona, a small hotel just off the main shopping street, Nevsky Prospekt, changed clothes quickly, and was soon ambling northwest, snapping pictures in the dull gray light. Passed the lovely pink Stroganov Palace, and soon I was inside my afternoon destination, the Hermitage museum. My SSE hosts had pre-reserved a ticket on the Internet, and in no time I was slack-jawed, surrounded by gilt. The place was simply eye-popping, as much for the building (formerly a palace for the tsars) as the vast collection. And I mean vast – an entire gallery for well-known artists like Van Dyck, and a couple of large rooms for Matisse. IBM provided some handy touch-screen guides throughout the building, and at the end of two hours of speedy viewing I had seen most of the works and spaces listed on the “Highlights” screen. I left the museum and headed back to the hotel, detouring for a simple, early dinner – a tuna-salad sub, chips, and tomato juice. Neither Vladimir Ilych Lenin nor Nikita Kruschev could have foreseen a Subway restaurant on Nevsky Prospekt, the city's main street!

I took a quick nap, and at 7:15 met my SSE-Russia host, Pavel Novikov. A good guy, St. Pete native, Pavel had lived in California and elsewhere in America for a number of years. We walked up the street to the building that housed SSE’s Russian “campus,” a renovated floor of an older building. My task that night was to present a talk to their Russian alumni. I was skeptical of turnout, but about 15 appeared. I began the lecture by telling them that when I was 11, I could not have envisioned that 45 years later I would be in Russia to present a talk about a private enterprise. More, I said that I used to run home to look at the Minneapolis Star, to see how much closer we were to nuclear war with the Soviets. That we escaped that fate, I said, was reason to be optimistic, and to thank God.

The talk went well. Afterward, there were red wine and snacks, and chatter. Pavel and I walked back to the hotel, and he reminded me of the outlines of the massive suffering of the last century: 75 million Russians dead between 1917 and 1953, from the Revolution, imprisonment, willful starvation, and World War II. It was sobering. I told him that his were a persistent people. He nodded agreement.

Back at the hotel, seriously fatigued, I called home and clocked out. Up the next morning, Saturday the 8^th, and to class. In front of me were 30 Russians. I repeated my comment from the night before, and we plunged into the airline business. We were going to spend 12 hours together that day and the next, and I urged them to ask questions, to interact. And they did. In the Cold War years, we were told that Russians were smart people, and these young men and women fit that. From the get-go, they were raising their hands, engaging. Through the two days, a young, earnest I.T. guy sitting in the front row, was always asking.

We had a good discussion at lunch about authority as an element in Russian culture, about the 900-day siege of Leningrad (September 1941-January 1944), when Nazis essentially encircled the city and tried – but failed – to force the citizens into submission. During the siege, 1.2 million people died, and 1.3 million escaped. A persistent people, for sure. Our values may differ, but we must admire them.

The lecture Saturday was marathon. I had never taught for a whole day before, and by seven I was drained. Ambled home, changed clothes, and headed out the door, bound for The Idiot Restaurant, named for Dostoevsky’s novel. I found the street on the map, along one of the canals. It was a hike, but worth it. A very funky place. I ordered a large beer, and it appeared a couple minutes later – served with a shot of vodka that I did not request, but did consume as the first order! I had a tasty meal, and walked back to the hotel.

Was up the next morning at 7:20, to meet an SSE-Russia alumnus, Steve Caron, for coffee at 8. A California native (and second-generation USC man), he’s been in Russia since before the fall of Communism, and now runs a student-oriented business.