I must be losing my touch

I went to the “town meeting” at the local MUD building a while ago. The first thing I was asked to do was to sign one of the “attendance sheets” that had been placed on some tables in the foyer. It was not; however, an attendance sheet, since by signing it I was essentially signing on that I agreed with their proposals, proposals which I had not yet heard. Most of those in attendance did sign and it should be no surprise that there were many sheep taking the place of thinking and reasoning human forms.

I did listen to the information, some of which might actually be worthy of pushing forward; more precisely, there was an explanation of how the glide paths of aircraft entering their final approach, somewhere about the ten mile markers which is where our subdivision just happens to be located, that instead of having a rather shallow attitude of declination or roughly 2000 feet, it could be raised to about 3000 feet without creating any issues as far as safety or extremes in passenger comfort while at the same time reducing ground noise complaints from neighborhood residents. The hand out material specified that it should be raised to 4000 feet; not being a pilot or one in a position to identify the issue of safety or passenger comfort, those figures are simply numbers to me.

In either case, I could see how some simple concessions on the part of the airport administration, the FAA and the pilots should be addressed; with the reserved stipulation that I endorse such a change only if it does not cause or create a situation that is a hazard to the safe operation of these aircraft based on their specific knowledge and input. I do not trust the bureaucratic managers of government to such a decision and I am quite certain that those in attendance of our town meeting would have bobbed their heads in agreement had the option been proposed to fly all airplanes below ground level and eliminate surface noise altogether.

Most of the other issues that were brought before our community members, quite frankly, did not apply to our particular location because we are, as I mentioned, about 10 miles from the airport facility. The presentation attempted to equate our lives with those who lived quite a bit closer, those whose homes were so close as to shake with each passing airplane; for those people life would be, and is, quite a different situation than our own. We have many airplanes fly over because Houston is the 4th largest airport in the nation as far as air traffic; however, by our location relative to the airport, the fact remains that airplanes must fly over our neighborhood.

I can’t see staging a major protest over the fact that it gets hot in Houston during the Summer; why would I get upset over the fact that airplanes headed to the airport can’t use some kind of “worm hole” in time to avoid my neighborhood. All they would have to do is drop through the black hole, keep from being crushed by the tremendous forces necessary to make a time/space leap and then appear at the airport. Don’t they have any consideration for my peace and quiet?

There was quite a bit of time spent explaining the disasters to our peace and quite that would happen each time a new runway expansion took place in the near future, all to be done with or without our approval. There were explanations of how it was impossible to carry on a conversation while sitting next to the back yard swimming pool; something that must be on the world list of atrocities imposed on the affluent citizens. Maybe these are the same folks who want to shut down Club Gitmo, I thought some of them looked a little worried when told that the air conditioning in the MUD building was doing its best under the circumstances and that the addition of an oscillating fan was helping to move the air. It must be noted that I couldn’t hear one airplane fly over because the fan was making so much noise. We really do have a tough life here in Olde Oaks.

I had a chance to raise my hand well into the meeting and advised everyone that I seemed to be the only one in attendance who was not bothered by airplanes flying over, the associated noise or the possible devaluation of my home. I further explained that I considered such meetings, at least as far as our particular subdivision went, that we would be Majoring in Minor Things, as was the name of the article which I published on the internet recently and linked via the title bar. I explained, above a not so civil attempt to shout me down, that I had come to be informed rather than be recruited to a cause.

I titled this piece, “I must be losing my touch”, because only two or three of my neighbors lost their composure and invited me to leave, pointing to the door. One was incensed that I would offer an opinion that was counter to his own while yet another was indignant because he claimed to have lost $40K off the value of his home’s retail listing. I didn’t point out the fact that his home’s value might have been affected by the recent Wal-Mart store being built at the front of the neighborhood. I should explain that while many folks consider Wal-Mart second cousin to Satan himself, I think they are a wonderful addition to the overall retail market and this way they are exactly one mile away and I don’t have to cross FM 1960 to get there. Through the rest of the meeting these two fine examples of the American process of idea exchange would check to see why I had not left, surely it was obvious to them, that my opinion was not in concert with the rest. I was beginning to feel better for having raised at least a few veins.

When the meeting ended, mostly from attrition, there were only a handful of my neighbors left. I made it a point to greet them, assure them that I did in fact live within the boundaries of the Olde Oaks subdivision; one having asked if I was “a plant” from the City could not believe that anyone could bear all that noise every time an airplane went overhead. Another of my neighbor’s was sitting on the back row and was grumbling to his wife loudly enough that I understood that he was miffed at my comments. I heard her quietly explain that she had never been bothered by any of the airplanes and actually enjoyed watching them and that he was behaving badly. She had accompanied him as a chance to meet socially with her friends and had no intention of making airplane noise an issue.

I did get to talk one on one with Linda Faulkner, a member of the Olde Oaks Board and is on the committee, “The Coalition for Homeowners Alliance Requiring Government Equity”, responsible for addressing all of the concerns which were brought up, real or imagined. I was never all that good in punctuation; isn’t there supposed to be a comma, a semi-colon or two sentences in a name that long? I thanked her for the information and told her that I agreed with the idea of increasing the altitude of approaching aircraft since it was based in solid reasoning and would improve relations with some of my more “fragile” neighbors. I still am mildly amused that so much time and effort was exerted to accomplish almost nothing of value. I plan to check into the provided web site, http://www.TheCharge.org/ to keep informed. I still think that these folks have way too little to gripe or complain about.