The Long Voyage Home

It's been hectic but let me tell you the story of our first summer vacation to Iran. My folks and half the 6 kids lived in Agha Jai, Iran and we older brothers (3) were in boarding school at OMA, Claremore, OK. My oldest brother was elected to get us vaccinated, passported etc and lead us to Abadan, Iran. It was a 45 minute flight on a twin-engine DeHaviland "Dove" 8-passenger prop plane from Abadan to Agha Jari (owned by IOEP&C). We left Tulsa on a Friday morning, flying to Chicago. Then on to La Guardia and then by helicopter to JFK. Our plane was supposed to leave by 9 pm from JFK but was delayed till midnight.

This precipitated missed connections all the way through our itinerary. Since it was SAS, we arrived in Copenhagen the next morning. After frantic efforts by my oldest brother, we secured new connections and flew to Rome, then to Beirut, Lebanon. They got water in the plane's fuel tanks and had to flush them out.

Meanwhile, the airline took us to the Beirut Riviera beach but it was a mixed blessing as we were in travel clothes and our bags were still on the plane. Then they took us to a museum (forgettable) and to lunch atop some hotel. Hors d'œuvre were served but wary of what animal they came from or what middle eastern weed, we turned up our nose.

The last leg was to Abadan as I recall. We arrived at the airport at a late hour Sunday night, a FULL 24 hours late. No one met us at the airport and their English was as good as our Farsi. My brother secured us a taxi to the hostel along with our bags. We arrived at the hostel about 10 pm and while signing in, the desk clerk remarked that there was another person by the same name registered there. We grabbed the registration book and looked to see who. Lopez is not a common name in Iran. It was mom. She was already in bed when we burst into her room. Our father had had to take a flight home already to go back to work.

If that wasn't enough, when we stepped off the DeHaviland Dove in Agha Jari they pulled the old you-are-lucky-to-be-arriving-on-a-cooler-day-than-usual comment. It was WAY over 100 F. And when we got to the house, they had a man-servant (women were forbidden to hold jobs) who met us when we pulled up. As was local custom, he bore down on us to honor us with a kiss! No man was gonna kiss us! We took off running around the house and a rabbit cage until he finally cornered us. He happily smooched us on both cheeks. His English was limited and he uttered the phrase that was to become part of our family lore for eternity, "You good boy."

More later