‘Tis the week before Christmas
And all through my head
Not a synapse is firing
I must be brain dead
At first I thought it was a bad dream, brought on, perhaps, by an overdose of eggnog and reruns of the “Queer Eye” Christmas special.
But now I truly believe I was visited the other night by three spirits, the ghosts of big aerospace stories past, present and future.
The first spirit to visit me appeared as a big man with a big voice – looking, oddly enough, like U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks. He was dressed in a U.S. Air Force uniform but he sported a Santa Claus hat, carried a big sack over his shoulder and identified himself as the Ghost of Tanker Deals Lost.
I took his hand and we whisked over the snow-covered countryside to a strange city. He took me to a mighty five-sided fortress by the river. A band of faceless officers and bureaucrats were going door-to-door singing a jolly holiday carol, to the tune of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”:
Tankers got run over by John Muh-Cain
Going to the White House Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as scandals
But ask ol’ Darleen Druyan, she believes
The spirit then opened his sack, which was filled with shiny new airplanes that turned to paper before my eyes.
Spirit, what does this mean? I cried.
Dicks – I mean the Ghost of Boeing Deals Lost – shook his head ruefully. “Never underestimate the power of greed and stupidity,” he said. “And keep an eye on that SOB from Arizona.”
I awoke startled in my bed to find a new spirit standing before me. He wore a blue dress shirt, open at the collar, with a logo embroidered over the pocket, but in the dim light of my bedroom I couldn’t tell if the logo read “7E7” or “787.”
He was, he said, the Ghost of Boeing’s New Plane.
I took his hand and again went flying through the night, this time to a huge building on a bluff overlooking an inland sea. There, in a scene like Santa’s workshop, a team of elves busily snapped together plastic Lego building blocks to create a magical airplane that would make everyone rich.
A great group of people from strange foreign nations – Italy, Japan, Texas – put down their pieces of the airplane and began to sing (to the tune of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”:
Vought won’t build Dreamliner wings
Mitsubishi does such things
Pieces fly across the sea
On planes reshaped radically
Joyful all ye airlines rise
Buy the new queen of the skies
Hear the Wall Street folks proclaim
Boeing has the top regained
Vought won’t build Dreamliner wings
Mitsubishi does such things.
But spirit, I cried, when is anyone going to buy this fine new airplane?
The Ghost of Boeing’s New Plane gave me a dirty look. “Look, even the three wise men showed up 12 days late,” he grumbled.
The clock chimed out 3 a.m. – which is really weird, because my clock radio doesn’t have chimes – and I awoke to find the third spirit, a quiet man, sitting by my bed with two massive contracts on his lap.
Spirit, I know you, I said. You are the Ghost of Boeing’s Labor Future, and perhaps I fear you most of all.
The spirit nodded silently. He stood up and motioned for me to join him.
In a blink of an eye we were standing on a dark sidewalk in the cold. Clusters of grim people carried signs and huddled around fires burning in strange stoves, the collars of their union jackets turned up against the rain.
Then, in the next blink, the sun came out and three men stepped out of the crowd – Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally, Machinists union leader Mark Blondin and technical workers’ union boss Charles Bofferding. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and began to sing, to the tune of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”:
I saw Alan shaking hands with Mark
Over there by Longacres last night
The contract they agreed
For workers was a dream
It holds the line on health care
And adds thousands to the team
I saw Alan shaking hands with Mark
Over there by Longacres last night
Oh what a laugh it would have been,
If Charlie had only seen
Alan shaking hands with Mark last night!
Spirit, oh spirit! I cried. Which of these futures will come to pass in 2005? The workers feel threatened by outsourcing – can you really come together on new contracts? Will it be burn barrels and picket signs, or happy signing bonuses?
The spirit smiled at me, shook his head and shrugged.
“It’s Christmastime, so of course this dream has a happy ending,” he said. “Who do you think I am, Scrooge?”
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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