"Covid-19: Why travel will never be the same" (video from The Economist).

The video isn't quite as depressing as I imagined at first glance. My primary concern is international travel; according to the correspondent, these should remain competitive, which will make big fare increases less likely. He also points out that airlines are being forced into greater efficiency by the crisis (retiring older planes, for instance).

The Economist: "Covid-19 has devastated global travel and -- as the industry recovers from the effects of the pandemic -- tourism will be increasingly localised and complicated. This won’t just affect foreign holidays; it could disrupt the workings of the globalised world. Read more here.

Two deaths and a ghost, or three amazing stories -- at least to me.

Prague, 1997.

Two of these snippets pertain to recent deaths. The third describes an apparition.

To be honest, I had no idea who Gene Deitch was, and I'm grateful to my friend W for making me aware of his passing, but more importantly, about his life, especially as "the only free American living and working in Prague during 30 years of the Communist Party dictatorship"

Eugene Merril Deitch (August 8, 1924 – April 16, 2020) was an American illustrator, animator, comics artist, and film director. Based in Prague since 1959, Deitch was known for creating animated cartoons such as Munro, Tom Terrific, and Nudnik, as well as his work on the Popeye and Tom and Jerry series.

Several days after arriving in Prague in October 1959, Deitch met Zdenka Najmanová, the production manager at the studio Bratři v triku where he worked. They married in 1964. Deitch's memoir, For the Love of Prague, is based on his experience of being what he called "the only free American living and working in Prague during 30 years of the Communist Party dictatorship". According to Deitch, although he was followed by the StB and his phone was tapped, he was never aware of their presence and was never interrogated nor arrested.

Deitch died in Prague on April 16, 2020, at the age of 95. Shortly before his death, Deitch had noted intestinal problems.

I might have met Deitch on the street without knowing during one of those many days I spent in Prague. Back in America during COVID times, there was an incredible coincidence.

A 100-year-old WWII veteran died of Covid-19. His twin brother died 100 years earlier in the flu pandemic, by Giulia McDonnell (CNN)

A 100-year-old World War II veteran who died from Covid-19 lost a twin brother to the 1918 pandemic a century earlier, his grandson said.

Philip Kahn is the oldest veteran in Nassau County, New York, according to his family, and had been fearful of another pandemic happening in his lifetime, his grandson, Warren Zysman, told CNN.

"It was something he brought up quite frequently," Zysman said. "I would have conversations with him, he would say to me, 'I told you history repeats itself, 100 years is not that long of a period of time.'"

Kahn and his twin brother, Samuel, were born on December 5, 1919. His brother died weeks later, his grandson said.

I read elsewhere that when Kahn developed a cough, he knew exactly what it might signify, and told family members that our government could have acted sooner and more decisively with containment measures.

To conclude, not so much a death ... although Anwar Sadat's family might disagree.

The Ghost Airline That Has Linked Cairo and Tel Aviv for Decades, by Shira Telushkin (Atlas Obscura)

Air Sinai is shrouded in mystery. But why?

The unmarked plane belonged to Air Sinai, which only flies between Cairo and Tel Aviv. In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a historic peace treaty, overseen by the United States, which inaugurated diplomatic relations between the two countries and made Egypt the first Arab nation to recognize the State of Israel. Air Sinai, founded in 1982, fulfills a term in the treaty that had to be implemented within three years of signing: the two countries must maintain active civilian aviation routes—meaning there always had to be a direct flight between Israel and Egypt.

It just didn’t have to be public.

A future mayor? An ex-brewery owner? 30 years later, there's another fork in the road, and I'm pumped.

Thirty years ago, I closed my eyes wide shut and jumped -- not so sure where or even if I'd land, but firm in the realization that I needed to do something to change my life.

I packed a gym bag, converted my life's savings into traveler's checks, bought a plane ticket and a rail pass, and went to Europe for three months.

It doesn't sound like much, and in the cosmic scheme of things, it wasn't. Millions of human beings have done the same, in different ways in different times. I'm just a speck, but it's the only speck I have, and I needed to relaunch the whole process of figuring out exactly who I was, because back then, the mechanism had stalled.

I was fortunate, and the plan worked. Europe made me what I am today, or more accurately, my stubborn determination that Europe would make me what I became actually bore fruit. It has been one hell of a ride, with only a handful of negligible regrets.

Three decades later, it's time for another jump, and another relaunch. It's been time for quite a while. The public end of this process began this morning with the publication of an article by Kevin Gibson at Insider Louisville: After a quarter century, Roger Baylor will move on from New Albanian Brewing Company.

The private side has been cogitating for a very long period. True, the devil's always in the details, and numerous stories might yet be written about how we got here, but there are three main bullet points that matter to me right now:

I want to be mayor of  New Albany, because this city desperately needs challenging from someone like me, and it's our time.

If not mayor, then I'm looking forward to a "solo" career as yet uncharted; NABC has been and will continue to be, so don't worry.

I am quite serene about these and other developments.

Thanks to everyone expressing support today and in the weeks to come. If not for that first leap back in 1985, I'd have gotten to know precious few of you, and be the poorer for the omission.

The following was published last week at Potable Curmudgeon. I may even have intended it as prelude. The 1985 travel series will continue in fits and starts, as I have the opportunity to write.

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The PC: Euro ’85, Part 15 … The traveler at 55, and a strange interlude.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(Fifteenth in a series chronicling my travel year 1985)

In 1985, I wasn’t a very good flier.

Given my lack of experience in the air – in life itself – perhaps this is understandable. Up until then, I’d made only two round-trip flights ever, and the first one was when I was a small child. It was a prop plane, and the destination was Detroit. We taxied forever.

That’s all I’ve got.

The second was in 1978, to San Francisco and back, and it was unpleasant in the extreme. I probably required sedation. My problem wasn’t an aversion to enclosed spaces, or to the Hare Krishna devotees still roaming airports back then, but a fear of heights, which plagues me to this very day, even if I’ve gotten better managing it.

Consequently, the prospect of leaving on a jet plane instigated a fair share of anxiety. Everything about it made me nervous, and to make matters worse, I’d gotten absolutely hammered in Chicago the night before the flight.

Boarding Icelandair for Luxembourg via Reykjavik, and the long-awaited adventure of a lifetime, I was in the throes of a brutal hangover, immune to any hair of the dog, constitutionally and existentially challenged, and with certain doom lurking just around the corner.

Was it too late to call the whole thing off?

At least there was a bright side. I wasn’t in the smoking section, which in those days still existed in the back of the plane. Strange, isn’t it? Using the toilet meant cutting through a wall of cigarette smoke, and of course, one couldn’t just step outside for a breath of fresh air.

Later I realized that for a nicotine addict, being deprived of cigarettes stood to greatly compound the sort of fears gripping me, and in physically wrenching ways I’d mercifully never understand because I didn’t smoke.

However, the Rubicon was ripe for crossing. After the usual pleasantries, instructions and delays, we took off and soon reached cruising altitude. The trip was inexorable and irreversible. Europe finally was coming, and I could feel the level of stress slowly ebbing.

Then there was a random act of turbulence, and the plane abruptly took a big, swooping roller coaster dip.

WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Pulse skyrocketing, my heart pushed into my throat, and with a panic attack about to ensue, at least I had the presence of mind to look around the cabin, where dozens of fellow passengers were snacking, reading, talking and napping, utterly serene and oblivious to the commonplace.

Relief yielded to chagrin as I worried whether anyone else had seen me lose my composure.

In short, it was my life of naïve underachievement in a nutshell, but a good lesson for a hick from somewhere near French Lick: Fake it until you can make it. Just stop, look, listen and imitate. I tried mightily to apply it once on the ground, and for the thirty years since, with only varying degrees of success.

Eventually I became a better flier, although it didn’t happen overnight. By the 1990s, I actually began looking forward to transatlantic flights as the only time I could be untethered, relax and not be bothered. Nowadays, these commuting hours are sacred times for decompression and meditation. I’ve come a long way in this regard.

---

As noted previously, one of the factors most influencing my decision to spend three months in Europe in 1985 was an absolutely debilitating level of self-doubt. It’s nice knowing you’re capable of connecting with reality just enough to get by, but sheer hell being bright enough to realize you’re doing nothing and going nowhere.

Would I return to university and get my public school teaching credits? What about law school? I’d done relatively well on the LSAT. Maybe get a real job at last, instead of stringing together part-time gigs?

In fact, I was damned fortunate to have the space for dawdling rumination. There were no wars to be drafted into fighting, no nearby mines with coal for extracting, and no babies with mouths to feed. I worked, ate, drank and slept alone, because it hadn’t yet occurred to me that the opposite sex’s interest in knowing me just might be enhanced by me knowing something about myself.

Looking back after three decades, it’s quite clear that once I’d made the decision to spend time in Europe, it was necessary to up the ante. To be sure, it was a legitimate fork in the road for me, but one I didn’t randomly encounter. It was self-engineered.

I’d never spent so much time working toward something tangible. Traveling simply had to be an act of self-redemption. There was no Plan B, apart from returning home and following meekly into the mundane world of home, car, job and IU basketball season tickets.

I had to jump, damn it, and trust the parachute would open.

Fortunately, it did.

---

Thirty years later, with the consummate luxury of perspective, there are times when I’d like nothing more than to return to the blissful, uncomplicated life of the 24-year-old me (who celebrated his 25th birthday in Leningrad), except I’d have to retain what I’ve learned since, and there’s the eternal rub.

No debt or encumbrances and dumb as a rock, or achieving periodic glimpses of wisdom amid being mortgaged to the hilt, both literally and figuratively.

I’ll settle for the latter, because in 2015 it comes equipped with my partner in life, without whom little of it would make much sense. Her presence does not prevent me from trying to imagine a simpler all-around existence, one allowing for a return to those long-ago fundamentals – and that’s what they were, too: Fundamentals.

It was about fundamentals, basics, and growing into a conceptual framework for interpretation of much that followed 1985. Eventually I witnessed the collapse of the post-war European order, stumbled into a career in beer, experienced the transformational impact of the wider-wired world, raised my share of hell, learned, fought, loved, lost and even sometimes won, and now, 30 years on, it seems that I’ve arrived at another of those forks in the road.

Once again I’ve gamed it, because a change has to come, but this time there’s a twist.

The fundamentals that most interest me are currently are undervalued in my career in beer, but they’re sorely necessary in a broader sense in my city, New Albany.

That’s the first fork, and it’s irrevocable. I’m running for mayor, and soon, I intend to be an ex-brewery owner, although I know it will take time to complete the forms.

The next choice is just over the horizon, and depends on the whim of the electorate. Win or lose, it’s time again to jump, and trust the parachute will open.

I trust it will.

---

Previously:

The PC: We pause Euro '85 to remember the Mathäser Bierstadt in Munich.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 14 … Beers and breakfast in Munich.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 13 … Tears of overdue joy at Salzburg's Augustiner.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 12 … Stefan Zweig and his world of yesterday.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 11: My Franz Ferdinand obsession takes root.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 10: Habsburgs, history and sausages in Vienna.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 9 … Milan, Venice and a farewell to Northern Italy.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 8 … Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 7 … An eventful detour to Pecetto.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 6 … When in Rome, critical mass.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 5 … From Istanbul to Rome, with Greece in between.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 4 … With Hassan in Pithion.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 3 … Growing up in Greece.

The PC: Euro '85, Part 2 ... Hitting the ground crawling in Luxembourg.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … Where it all began.

Egalitarianism and the art of taking a leak.

Yesterday was the occasion of the 18th Annual Indiana Microbrewers Festival in Indianapolis. It was a Brewers of Indiana Guild production, and apart from some light rain at the beginning, probably good enough overall for rock and roll and food and beer on a Saturday afternoon.

Speaking personally, I’m always grateful that so many folks enthusiastically tolerate the discomfort, crowds and expense to come celebrate better beer with us. Without these fans, it is obvious that there could be no “us” in any meaningful conceptual (or commercial) sense. At least the weather yesterday was cooler than usual for July, and the sun mostly muted.

Recuperating on Sunday morning, I began catching up on missed reading, having just returned from England on a transatlantic flight that seemed even more uncomfortable than previous trips.

Class Struggle in the Sky, by James Atlas (New York Times)

During an intercontinental flight, I notice that “on the other side of the curtain” — as the first-class and business cabins are referred to — dinners are being served on white linen tablecloths, with actual bone china. Everyone’s got their “amenities kit” — one of those little nylon bags containing slippers, an eyeshade and a toothbrush. And legroom? Tons. While our seat width contracts — on some airlines by nearly eight inches in recent years — the space up front continues to expand …

… This stark class division should come as no surprise: what’s happening in the clouds mirrors what’s happening on the ground. Statusization — to coin a useful term — is ubiquitous, no matter what your altitude. While you’re in your hospital bed spooning up red Jell-O, a patient in a private suite is enjoying strawberries and cream. On your way to a Chase A.T.M., you notice a silver plaque declaring the existence within of Private Client Services. This man has a box seat at a Yankees game; that man has a skybox …

And so on. Back in June, in a column at LouisvilleBeer.com, I offered what (perhaps) is a heretical viewpoint with reference to beer festivals like the one yesterday. Actually, it was about the one yesterday.

A VIP and an IBU walk into a beer fest

… I’ll cite as a convenient example ticket packages available for the Brewers of Indiana Guild festival in Indianapolis on July 20, while hastening to add that this doesn’t constitute my singling out the Guild for scrutiny; after all, it’s my own trade group. In fact, I imagine BIG is coming to such strategies of ticket pricing rather late in the game.

VIP Experience: $100 (very limited, online only)
Includes early admission (2:00) and access to exclusive VIP Experience Tent (special tappings and food pairings), tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

Early Bird: $55 (limited, online only)
Includes early admission (2:00), tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

General Admission: $40 (advance purchase)
Includes tasting glass and unlimited beer samples

Yesterday I stuck religiously to the Indiana brewer side of the Opti Park fest grounds and didn’t once venture into the “guest brewer” compound, the latter financed primarily by World Class Beer, and accordingly devoted to featuring non-Indiana beers (a topic previously covered here and here).

Consequently, all I know about the VIP Experience Tent is what is noted in the above passage. I can’t tell you whether VIPs had their own port-a-lets (luxury grade or otherwise), although I was told there were plenty of portable toilets lined up on the “guest beer” side of the park, presumably owing to there being more physical space for them.

But I do know this: NABC was positioned at the very end of the misspelled and quite crowded “allee” between the museum and the river, and directly to our right were five (5) port-a-lets. The line to use them was 50 (75? 100?) deep or more for most of the afternoon, until the very end of the festival.

In my June column, I wrote this:

Back out on the pitch, those $40 beer festival ducats still comprise the bread and butter on the fest’s bottom line, and we need to see to it that these attendees are not subjected only to the mud and the blood and the (leftover) beer, while the VIPs strut the corduroyed catwalk, pinkies extended, constantly checking their iPhones to make sure the beer they’re drinking is the truly rare Rye Barrel release, and not that commoner’s Boubon Barrel version that just ANYONE can buy – and subsequently hoard.

Egalitarianism should be a craft/real/better beer ideal, but if egalitarianism even remotely was my guild’s aim yesterday, then toilet lines like the one near us obviously signify a failure that’s rather glaring. Granted, attendees who largely confined themselves to the Indiana brewery area might not have been aware of port-a-lets on the “guest” end, and yet there was ample room for more at “Allee’s” end.

By the end of the afternoon, the ATC-mandated orange fencing defining our salient was being trampled in all directions by men and women looking for secluded tree trunks and underbrush. It was disappointing, to say the least.

Note that as a director serving on the guild’s board, I’m not passing the buck. It is “our” and “we,” not “someone else,” and all of us must be honest and introspective when it comes to planning improvements for a better performance next time out.

I’m saying only this: If I’m ever asked to weigh in, I’ll be voting against a renewal of the VIP Experience. For it to exist alongside hundred-yard lines to use the port-a-let just strikes me as unconscionable.