Thursday, July 09, 2009

I can relate

Lifted from Facebook:

United Airlines luggage handlers broke this guy's guitar and passengers in the plane witnessed it getting tossed around. After a year of trying to get United to pay, this guy wrote a song about it.



Click here for more details.

I had something similar happen on a Spring Break mission trip to Puerto Rico in 1985. When we landed, I was dismayed to find my guitar looking like this coming off the belt, with all the socks, T-shirts I had stuffed in it (I used all the space I had available!) spilling out:



I used to have a picture of what it looked like inside the case. I carried the picture on a trip or two after that to help convince the flight crew they needed to let me carry the guitar on. I lost it at some point. Painful memory, anyway.

The good news was that I had recently been given a new guitar (after telling my dad I put it on layaway already, and would never ask for another Christmas present again!) and planned to sell this one cheap when I got back. And Delta apologized and paid me all I requested.

Plus I got a laugh when I told everyone it looked like they used it to stop the plane. Hopefully they have other techniques by now.

1 comment:

Janelle Martin said...

A few years ago, in Guitar magazine, there was an article about someone's Taylor guitar that had been put in cargo. When he went to claim it, the case looked almost exactly like your picture, but the guitar inside looked like it had been run through a shredder. Dana and I both got nauseated looking at it. I guess that's why B.B. King always bought an extra seat for "Lucille", his guitar. I don't know if they even let you bring on on board now...