JWA travelers stranded

Young Chang

JOHN WAYNE AIRPORT -- Ed Marino sat on a bench outside John Wayne

Airport on Tuesday morning with a junk novel in his lap and tired creases

on his face. He asked futile questions, one after the other.

What’s the hurry to die? Aren’t we all supposed to anyway? What’s all

this for? For religion? Politics? Both?

“I don’t know, there are no answers,” the 57-year-old conceded.

Forget when he might get home, to Miami. Or how his business deal

might end on this trip that’s been delayed indefinitely. Forget whether

the ticket he bought for this morning will be of any use. Forget all

that, which is smaller than life and death.

Stranded in Newport-Mesa after terrorist attacks on New York City’s

World Trade Center and the Pentagon closed every airport in the country,

Marino dealt with the shock by asking rhetorical questions and losing

himself in a novel he was too embarrassed to name.

“I have a daughter stuck in Atlanta,” he said. “She started in Norfolk

[Va.] at 6:15 a.m. Hopefully, she has sense enough to rent a car and

drive to Miami.”

While an eerie midnight barrenness filled John Wayne’s terminals and

baggage claims, Marino and other travelers waited outside after security

officials emptied out the facility.

Empathizing with the 266 passengers who were aboard the four hijacked

flights -- two of which crashed into the World Trade Center, one into the

Pentagon and one into a rural region of Pennsylvania -- the wanderers

thanked fate that they didn’t get any closer to the tragedy that killed

unsuspecting travelers much like themselves.

Apple Valley residents Fran and Don Bradshaw still had their straw

hats and Hawaiian-print shirts on as they waited for their daughter to

take them back to Long Beach.

Their Alaskan cruise ended before it began. They wondered what would

happen with the $5,000 they paid. They were grateful that a missed cruise

was their biggest problem that day.

“I say a prayer every time we get on a plane,” said Fran Bradshaw, 65.

“We didn’t get on this time.”

On a nearby bench, Ed Golden of Wisconsin perused the newspaper and

collected his thoughts on what had just happened.

This could have been expected, he said. After the first attempted

bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, he had always dreaded a

sequel.

“What people are really attacking here is capitalism,” Golden said.

“The heart of society.”

But he theorized because he could afford to, because his sister who’s

a flight attendant for American Airlines was reported OK. She normally

leaves out of Washington D.C., but Tuesday morning she was in Florida.

For Golden, word of his family’s safety was answer enough. For Marino,

who continued philosophizing with his junk novel closed, no amount of

information afforded him peace.

Don Bradshaw, 67, shook his head at the size of the tragedy.

“We never thought this would affect us out here” he said.