After the great disappointment of being rebuffed in his attempts to spend some time with his daughter, he began to think about getting back home to his business. He called the airline to see if he could get his departure date moved up and that was when he discovered that he had no departure date!

To his shock and dismay, the airline told him that since he had not gotten on the plane for the first leg of his flight, according to airline policy, he had forfeited the second and third legs. This had not been explained in any of the communications or literature that accompanied the ticket when it was purchased. This was the same airline that had tried to extort $1900 from him for the simple upgrade that he had requested on the Manila to San Francisco flight. The extortion was the reason that he had refused to get on the first leg to start with.

His outrage was, by this time, impossible to suppress. While he was yelling at the airline supervisor over the phone for what he considered to be theft, she calmly said that she could arrange for him to continue on his way back home for ONLY another $700 to buy back the ticket that he had already paid for. His reply was “Are you crazy?!?!?!?” as he slammed the phone down. Thankfully, there was another airline desk nearby who had heard his outrage. That airline offered him a ticket back home for half that price. The original airline, Northwest, went bankrupt a few months later. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving company.

My father’s birthday is still a few weeks off. His birthday is on the 25th of December to be precise. I was planning to send him cash. That way he can buy whatever he wants for his birthday. I can’t think of any great gifts for dads birthday other than cash. Any suggestions? I still have a few weeks to think it over before I would have to ship it in order for it to get there on time.

The long flight from Manila to San Francisco was a relative breeze. He left in the evening and with a little help from the Philippine Airlines bartender, the twelve hour flight passed quickly and easily. His plan was to spend a few days in San Francisco with his daughter whom he hadn’t seen for many years.

He had been very close with his daughter until his vicious and vindictive ex-wife was finally successful in her attempts to keep him from her. Anyone who is familiar with the long history of political and judicial corruption in the state of Illinois can easily guess what happened there. He had been in phone contact with her for more than a year and had sent many thousands of dollars over that period of time to try to help her out of a very bad situation that she had gotten herself into. After going through great difficulty to make the proper flight arrangements to have an extended lay over in San Francisco he had finally arrived.

He called her when he got in and arranged for her to pick him up at the airport in the car that he had recently bought for her. After waiting for more than an hour she did not show up. When he called her back she said that she had gotten sick and couldn’t make it. He begged her to come and spend just a little time but she wouldn’t do it. The spell that her mother had cast on her was unbreakable. His heart was broken and he could hardly stand the disappointment.