3 posts tagged “travel”
by Edith Honan
May 12, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour jetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."
When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a jetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.
But Mutlu was allowed to board after a jetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.
However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.
The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel.
At one point, the airplane experienced turbulence and Mutlu sat on the toilet seat without a seat belt, causing him "tremendous fear," the lawsuit said.
JetBlue was not immediately available for comment.
published:
Thursday | April 17, 2008
Reach Falls in Portland. - photos by Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
WHEN PRENTO, the short, round-headed chap who photographer Norman Grindley and I met near Reach Falls in Portland, shouted for me to watch my step, I couldn't hear him because of the sound of the water rushing down the rocks.
There was a hidden crevice in the ground that exposed a section of the gushing river. He was trying to point it out to me. All I managed to say was "huh?" before SPLASH! What happened after that, I have long tried to forget. Suffice it to say, I spent the next 10 minutes draining water from my shoes, much to Prento's amusement and to my own consternation. "Woi! A hope you boot nuh new! Hee Hee!" he chuckled. Smart Alec.
A willing guide
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived in Portland and the sun was still high in the sky. "Come this way man, you haffi walk dah way yah," Prento had shouted, as soon as we drove up. I should point out that we didn't go there to see him. For that matter, we didn't even know who he was. So it was with a quizzical look that we asked him where he wanted to take us. "Oh, mi did was think you did waan go a di falls," said he, pointing behind him and smiling, exposing a toothless mouth.
He said his name was Prento and he pointed to some nearby bushes and said, "Mi just live down over deh so."
I didn't pry. We told him that we were interested in learning more about that part of Portland and he smiled even wider than before. It was a smile only a mother could appreciate. "Is fi mi place dis you come, man. You deh right a Reach Falls, man. Is di prettiest part a Jamaica you ever see," he said. "Just follow me, man. Mi will take you there. Is dat mi do all di time," he said and started to walk. We were close behind him. "When people come here dem always say it more nicer dan di rest a di falls dem around di place. All Dunn's River and dem place deh caan nice like yah so."
Native battle call
I could hear the gushing water now and the air got noticeably cooler as we neared the falls. "Oy Prento!" someone shouted from the bushes. "Oy!" Prento responded and continued talking to us. My mind drifted and I started to think how funny that exchange was. It seemed like a native battle call. I chuckled to myself and somewhere between that and the sound of the rushing water, Prento's warning for me to watch out for the hole in the ground missed me. But enough about that. Ten minutes later, Prento was pointing out the tallest of the waterfalls at Reach.
"Dah one deh is di one weh di people dem say more lookable dan di rest a dem. A di biggest rock dat wi got round here so," he said. SPLASH! Prento was interrupted by the sound of a woman quite suddenly raising her head from beneath the water, almost right in front of me. I had not seen her before and so her sudden appearance caught me completely off guard. The shock of it all nearly sent me head first into the chilly water below. I suppose sensing my unease, the woman had a hearty laugh at my expense. "Woi! Mine you drop young bwoy! Nuh badda frighten, a just me! Woi, hee hee!" the woman laughed. Again with the jokes. She pulled herself out of the water with the help of a hanging vine and, dripping wet, she walked over to where we were standing. "Howdy do? No mind, you hear? You know from when mi see you? Mi know you never see mi but true mi see Prento a talk to you mi just say mek mi come say hello. What unu is about, please?" she said, using a bleach-stained towel to dry her face. She was a tall woman with thick thighs and a masculine chin. She said her name was Mavis and explained that she lived nearby.
Loving the falls
"Mi think unu was tourist, you know. All you weh look like you fraid a water. Hee hee," she quipped. I asked Mavis if she spent a lot of time at the falls. "Oh God man. Every chance mi get mi deh yah. As cock crow a morning time mi just spread up di bed and come out yah. Dat a before di crowd reach. Mi is a regular around here," she said.
Prento interjected. "Most a wi who live nearby come to Reach Falls more time. Dat's why we kip so haughty. Wi just cool out wid di water before we go get all stress and sickness go tek wi over," he said.
The pair explained that Reach Falls was one of the more popular tourist attractions in all of Portland and was a favourite among visitors from Europe. "Di people dem from over inna England and Germany dem love dah place yah bad bad. Even more dan di people dem from Merica. Is like dem nuh waan left. Dem jump and dem swim and halla. One piece a sinting!" he said.
Mavis spoke up again. "We tek care a dem when dem come too. More time dem go a di edda falls dem and get harass. Not yah so! No sah! Portland people dem nuh talarate dem sinting deh. We love people so we always try fi mek dem comfortable!"
by Rory Raven
What evil lurks beneath the streets of Providence?
If you find yourself strolling down Benefit Street on an autumn afternoon, preferably around sunset, stop for a moment to admire #135. A fine yellow clapboard house set up on and built partway into a little hill, it has a good-sized yard where the current inhabitant grows roses. This is the Stephen Harris House, built in 1763. It is also known as "The Shunned House," from the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name. But the Harris House's sad history begins long before Lovecraft wrote the tale.
The House in History
Benefit is one of the oldest streets in Providence; it was originally much narrower and called Back Street. None of the original houses are left; all the houses you see are built on the sites of older houses, dating from the original settlement.
Because of its policy of religious tolerance, early Providence had no common burying ground, no single place where everyone agreed to bury their dead. So, in accordance with the practice of the day, each family had a plot on their own land which served as a family graveyard. To us, this might seem a bit ghoulish, but it was just business as usual in colonial America.
Around the time of the Revolution, Back Street was widened and straightened and renamed Benefit Street, to relieve the heavy traffic along the Towne Street (now South Main) and to be "a Benefit for All." The remains in all those little family plots were removed to North Burial Ground, then just recently opened. Allegedly, though, some of the bodies were left behind, and still remain buried here to this day. And, according to local legend, a Huguenot couple lived, died, and was buried on the site of #135, and were among the bodies that were missed.
When Stephen Harris built this house, his family fell on hard times. Harris was a well-to-do merchant in Providence, and owned several merchant vessels; it is said that a few of those vessels were lost at sea shortly after the completion of the house. This led to other financial problems. Mrs. Harris also had a hard time—several of her children died, and others were stillborn. (I was told by the current resident, who has done her own research into the house's history, that there was never a live birth in the house.) Probably the most (melo)dramatic part of the legend, however, is Mrs. Harris's descent into madness, and her confinement to an upstairs room. She was occasionally heard to shriek out the window of this room, but in French—a language she didn't know. Where could she have picked it up? Dead Huguenots, anyone?
The house had a bad reputation for years, and stayed in the Harris family for generations because they were unable to sell it. It subsequently fell into a state of general disrepair and decrepitude. This may have had as much to do with its history as with the fact that Benefit Street became a slum around the 1920s. Finally, during the revival of the 1970s, the current inhabitants of the house bought it from Harris's descendants and restored it beautifully. You may notice some signs on the gatepost, in French—clearly they have a sense of humor about the unusual history and reputation of their home.
The House in Fiction
H.P. Lovecraft was a noted horror writer who (aside from a short time spent in New York City) lived in Providence his entire life, from 1890 to 1937, and he frequently wrote for pulp magazines like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. (Interestingly, when Lovecraft submitted "The Shunned House" to Weird Tales in 1924, it was rejected by the editor, Farnsworth Wright, as being too wordy and slow. It was finally bought by the pulp's subsequent editor, after both Wright and Lovecraft had died.) Lovecraft often incorporated actual historical events and bits of local folklore into his stories to add verisimilitude to the fantastic events he described, as he does in "The Shunned House," even though he changed the name Stephen Harris to William Harris.
The story begins with its narrator informing us that "From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent." He then describes Edgar Allen Poe's frequent strolls along Benefit Street, a route which took him by the Shunned House.
Now the irony is this: In this walk, so many times repeated, the world's greatest master of the terrible and the bizarre was obliged to pass a particular house on the eastern side of the street; a dingy, antiquated structure perched on the abruptly rising side hill, with a great unkempt yard dating from a time when the region was partly open country. It does not appear that he ever wrote or spoke of it, nor is there any evidence that he even noticed it. And yet that house, to the two persons in possession of certain information, equals or outranks in horror the wildest phantasy of the genius who so often passed it unknowingly, and stands starkly leering as a symbol of all that is unutterably hideous.
At another point, Lovecraft mentions that the Harris family hired a servant by the name of Ann White, "a morose woman" from rural Exeter, where folks had some pretty "uncomfortable" superstitions.
There are other references and bits of lore along the way, but I won't spoil them for you. Go read the story.
Ideas to Ponder
Lovecraft was an incredibly prolific letter-writer, as can be seen in Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters (edited by S. T. Joshi & David E. Schultz, Ohio University Press, 2000). The collection groups Lovecraft's letters loosely by subject, but there is one section, entitled "The Blank Period" (1908-1913), when Lovecraft apparently wrote no letters at all. He was evidently very reluctant to speak of this period of his life, and makes only vague mention of it in his later letters. Joshi and Schultz, along with other scholars, suspect that Lovecraft may have suffered some kind of nervous breakdown during this time; the letters have passages such as "my health completely gave way," and mention "shadowy depressions."
The woman who now lives at #135 Benefit Street told me that, in researching the house, she found that Dr. Bates's Electropathic Sanatorium stood next door. (You can still see the outline of the former building on the wall of the next house: On the site is now a vest-pocket park.) She speculated that Lovecraft may have been a guest of Dr. Bates's during his blank period. After all, madness did run in his family—both his parents died at Butler Hospital—and his characters go mad regularly. And, Lovecraft was in his late teens and early twenties then, which is the time that many mental illnesses manifest themselves. So perhaps he got the idea about the Shunned House when receiving treatment next door, or perhaps he wasn't a patient and the mere proximity of the Shunned House to the Sanatorium got him thinking.
There's also another possible Lovecraft connection to the Shunned House. In L. Sprague de Camp's Lovecraft: A Biography (Doubleday, 1974) there's a mention of Lillian Clark, one of Lovecraft's aunts, living in the house for a time shortly before the death of Lovecraft's mother. She may have rented there for a time; no one knows.
So obviously, the Shunned House has a few mysteries in it yet...
http://www.quahog.org/attractions/index.php?id=139
