The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Have you ever noticed that there are two kinds of traveller these days. There are those that make it through the airport unchallenged and then there are the rest of us. Those that make it through all the lines and security checkpoints may get to their connecting flights sooner but they are missing out on all the reality of air-travel.



You may feel they have the upper hand but in reality they are only experiencing the rose tinted world that the airport offers. Only those of us forced to wait two hours for a baggage claim belt to be replaced or have to retreat to a backroom with an armed escort truly appreciate the airport for what it is. A sieve. A filtering system for human intelligence. The average traveller gets to pass through quickly because they are exactly that, average. Average height, average intelligence, average dress, just plain old average. The airport knows that any kind of incident it could present them with would be a wasted effort, only those with a keen eye and ear would appreciate the twenty minute conversation of a woman from Idaho pleading with an airline representative (airports don’t have employees anymore they have replaced then with representatives) to be allowed to proceed to their flight only to have the representative calmly inform the distraught woman that they have sold their seat to another flyer and that she will have to wait until tomorrow because she didn’t turn up early. Nor would the average traveller appreciate the representatives rebuttal to the woman’s’ accusations of them being unfair, the average traveller wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they overheard the representative calmly inform the stranded woman that two rights don’t make a wrong.



Only the experienced flyer can enjoy the nuances of stupidity that require only you open your eyes and ears and wait. But the airport demands payment for this brand of entertainment many precious hours must be given freely to the airport. This payment can take the form of delays, lost luggage or in my case, Immigration. The process for going through Immigration is always the same in theory however in practice no two passages through immigration are ever the same. You emerge from baggage claim and scout out the situation, it is best to survey the lines before committing to any one line. Without surveying the lines you run the risk of not only getting into the line that is at least an hour long but you run the risk of getting into the line that is an hour long without being surrounded by the type of people that make waiting in that line entertaining.



Imagine if you will a crowded room, each person jet lagged and dragging suitcases that in some instances are bigger they then are. Now imagine asking this room full of people to wait, for hours, in line, while standing. Keep in mind many of these people have just come off a flight that has crossed over a third of the worlds surface which left eight hours earlier. Eight hours of being crammed in a metal tube filled with recycled air with nothing to do but wait and watch a movie you probably have heard of but were glad you missed at the cinema. As you can imagine tempers are riled and every small inconvenience becomes monumental, this can be witnessed by the Pakistani man who has been informed that he missed a field on his landing card and will have to return to the landing card station because that is where the cards must be completed before entering the line. He withdraws a pen from his shirt pocket and leans against the counter top of the persons window but is again reminded that he must return to the landing card station to complete his form. He shakes his pen in a desperate attempt to get the last detail scrawled in but after his third attempt he throws up his hands in frustration curses the gods of homeland security and returns, fuming, to the landing card area.



Those around him chuckle at his incompetence and move forward that glorious inch, filing the human sized void left at the counter by his departure. The trick he obviously wasn’t aware of is to stand at the landing card counter for a full three minutes extra while you check your information. You stand their patiently, your pen moving over the required fields, turning your card over several times to make sure this slip of paper only has two sides and obeys the laws of time and space. You may think this is an exorbitant step but it is quite possible for an airport landing card to create several new dimensions in addition to front and back, top to bottom we all have come to expect, I don’t have a name for these new dimensions as they only come into existence for the brief moment of time between when you hand over your form and when it is received by the empty eyed and well armed security official.



While you stand their counting the sides of paper and re-checking your answers as many as 6 people will have come and gone either side of your kiosk, many of them sneering at you as they dash for the line in an effort to shave a full ten seconds off their waiting time. However you, the experienced traveller let them leave, you withstand the tutting and puffing noises from those behind you in line and finally when you are ready you turn to leave, your completely filled out landing card grasped firmly. You slowly move to the side to dodge the raging Pakistani man as he flails away at his landing card with the stub of a pencil. You duck under the Armani laptop case spiralling through the air, launched by one of the people who sneered at you and your stupidity for reading directions. You spare a glance back over your shoulder to watch the persons landing card fluttering to the ground in a flurry of frayed edged confetti. You arrive at the back of the line, those in front of you standing aside in awe of the ease of your progression through the chaos behind you. You nod slowly to those you pass and as you arrive at the head of the line your grip loosens. You hand over your card, scan your finger prints, retinas and brain patterns. You watch your passport receive the necessary stamps and be joined together with your landing card by two glorious little metal staples. And now this is the part the really experience traveller knows. Once you are through the line, you don’t look back. No matter what you hear from the depths of the line, you keep moving forward, your grip re-tightened.

Well I was born in nineteen-twenty-seven, so that would make me eighteen when I enlisted in nineteen-forty-five. I had gone through boot camp in San Diego and was assigned to the U.S.S Pontotoc as a Seaman First Class. The Pontotoc was carrying all different parts for airplanes, engines, wheels, armour even guns. It was all kept below of course but sometimes there would be crates piled up in different areas around the ship, but it never got crowded. There were about a thousand of us, navy personal and crew on board and seeing as how the Pontotoc was just a transport ship it never felt too crowded.



We arrived in Pearl Harbour sometime in April, nineteen-forty-five to serve as a clean up crew, re-supply and to provide some jumpers. I was one of the jumpers. I was told where to go and what to do and as a result I jumped around a lot. That’s how I ended up on a Canadian Hospital ship bound for Anawetok. Three days out from Pearl Harbour we struck some wreckage and damaged our water tanks, so that meant we had no clean water to wash in or even to drink. We were told that we had to ration what water we had left in out canteens and make do.



That was ok for the first day or so. But this ship was carrying way more men then it was designed for, we were all bunked up throughout the ship and some of the unlucky guys had to share a bunk and work in rotations, two on, two asleep. After the fourth day nobody had any water left in their canteens and a few of the guys who had been sea sick were really starting to get dehydrated. There is nothing worse then sea sickness on a crowded boat after a week at sea. For the first few days those that are sick can still make it out on deck before they get sick, however four days of constant vomiting and no clean water meant that those that were sick were now also dehydrated and weak, many of them couldn’t leave their bunks. They would just turn over and vomit on the floor because they were too weak to make it to the deck. And with the over-crowding you couldn’t get away from the sounds and smells of men being sick.



On the sixth day I was so thirsty that I tried to drink some of the ships water. I had gone to the taps and turned them on full. The taps groaned and shook for about ten seconds before the water started to seep out. At first it was a dull, rust coloured sludge but after a while it cleared and the flow got stronger. I was about to lower my head to drink when the tap shuddered and coughed and the water stopped for a second before it sputtered back. This time however the water was green in colour and had a smell like raw sewage. The smell was so strong that I fell back from it, fumbling with the taps to shut it off. There were a few men that got so desperate for a drink that they actually drank some of it, but they soon got sick and a few of them came close to dying.





It was another two days before we rendezvoused with some water ships to supply us with fresh water. These ships would purify sea water with some chemical and filter it and pump it into their storage tanks. Once we pulled up along side they were telling us that we had to line up and wait for our turn to get supplied. There was a surge for the railings and some guys were nearly lost overboard in the crush. There were men leaning over the railings holding out canteens, bowls and even their helmets in an effort to collect as much fresh water as they could. Some of the sea sick men had managed to make it to the railing, you could see their pale green faces bobbing through the crowds as they were pushed and jostled in the throng of men desperate for water. I must have drank about two canteens full before I actually tasted the water. It was clean and it was safe but it tasted like rubber from being through the filters and hoses. Nobody was complaining though we still had another five days before we got to Anawetok and every man was busy making sure everything that could be filled with water was filled to the brim.