Think Thanksgiving air travel is bad? My neighbor Marcia related a story a short while back which belongs in the category of “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

Many of us on Matinicus Island have fax machines in our homes, often for nothing more than as a means to order our groceries from Shaw’s, or because the thing came with the telephone to begin with. Incoming faxes are conspicuously uncommon for most of us. However, in mid-October, Marcia received a fax at her home on the north end of the island, and it indicated with appropriate letterhead its origin, that being the Portland International Jetport.

The fax read as follows:

“NOTAM (that means Notice to Airmen)…Airspace Penetration…flagged crane boom located approx. 2000ft. NNE of runway 18 threshold…..effective: immediately.”

Closer scrutiny of the fine print at the top of the fax sheet indicated that the notice was intended for DHL, the international freight company. “Presumably,” thought Marcia, “somebody needs this information for safety reasons, and I’m not that person.” Early the next morning she was roused up at 5:45 a.m. when the phone rang again, with another fax directed at DHL: “Subject: Low visibility Airport Operations…SMGCS plan now in effect…effective: immediately.” Sure enough, a peek out the window in the early dawn confirmed the fact…it was foggy out. She drafted a note and faxed it to the number from which the notice originated:

“To whom it may concern, You have sent me two faxes in the past two days concerning issues at the Jetport. You are sending to the WRONG NUMBER…please check your information on DHL and cease sending faxes. On the one hand, this is annoying to me at 5:30 in the morning. On the other hand, a critical safety update is obviously not being received by the appropriate people. Marcia, Matinicus, Maine.”

In hopes of getting some satisfaction on the business of wrong numbers, she called the telephone company…our telephone company, not necessarily PWM’s telephone company. After all the usual menu hassles (“press 1 for English, press 23 if you’re calling from Jupiter…”) she gets a sympathetic woman far from Maine who hears the story and replies, “Oh, dear, that must be SO annoying.”

“But there’s a crane on the runway.”

“Well, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about it.”

“Isn’t there some way to alert them that they aren’t reaching DHL?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything we can do…”

“This is a federal safety issue!”

“Do you have the Internet? Maybe you could look up the number for the Jetport…”

“There’s nothing the phone company can do?”

“Well, if you’d like, for an additional monthly fee you can subscribe to an enhanced telephone package where you could get call blocking, and have that number blocked…”

“But there is a crane on the runway!”

“Well, there isn’t really anything I can do…”

At this point, Marcia told us, she said to herself, “It’s a long distance call for me to call Portland, but hey, someone could die.” She finally got somebody in airport administration. “Hello, my name is Marcia, and I live on Matinicus Island and I’ve been getting these faxes…”

“Oh yes, we know. Say, is there a name on any of them?”

Marcia checked the notice about the crane. “It says ‘J. Smith.'”

“Oh…that’s Artie…could be nobody would have told him…”

“Well, TELL HIM!”

Within 30 seconds, another safety fax for DHL arrives from the Jetport. Two hours later, yet a fourth.

Later, the phone rang and this time a real person was on the line. “This is J.Smith…” He proceeded to explain how the faxes were being sent to DHL in Cleveland. “The area code is different, but the phone number is the same as yours.” Marcia, needless to say, then asked “Why don’t you dial the right area code?”

“Well, it’s the computer, you see…they put in the right number but the computer…”

“So, fix it.”

“But that,” Mr. Smith explained, “is the responsibility of the phone company. I suggest you call the phone company.”

“I did call the phone company.”

“And they said…?”

“More or less to pound sand.”

“Oh. I don’t know…”

“But there’s a CRANE on the runway! What about DHL?”

“Don’t worry about DHL, I’ll deal with DHL.” Arthur hung up, but not before suggesting once again, “Call the phone company.”

It occurred to us later what the proper response to all of this might have been. Marcia, by dint of pure coincidence, owns a piece of land which makes up a tiny bit of the end of the Matinicus airstrip.

Our 1,500-foot gravel airstrip is entirely on private property, and supports no administrative personnel whatsoever, but with Marcia in possession of a fax machine, she is ideally placed to issue safety notices with regard to fog, construction equipment, idiots on the runway with four-wheelers, stray Canada geese or anything else she perceives to be of interest to the folks at the Portland International Jetport.

Much to her credit, she has managed to resist the temptation.

Eva Murray, of Matinicus, is a 1986 graduate of Bates College and a columnist for Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine. E-mail her at [email protected].