Some old whoppers from the “looking back” article in the Star Advertiser (HI) today.
“In the 1990s I was in the Navy and working at a Pentagon office on international military issues.
“We received a phone call from a congressman’s office, asking what visa was required for the congressman to visit Hawaii, and how to get one.”
Richard Wallis said, “I was active duty in the Navy in the late 1980s, stationed on a ship out of Norfolk, Va. It was a very long way from home on the Big Island.
“When it came time to choose my next duty station, I elected to ‘come home’ to Hawaii.
“When I was going through the pre-transfer protocol, I had to get a medical clearance to be assigned to Hawaii. I can only assume it’s because of its tropical environment or something.
“The doctor on my ship told me I had to get a whole battery of tests. I asked him what would happen if I failed any.
“He told me I wouldn’t be allowed to transfer to Hawaii, or probably any other tropical or Asian station. Alternatively, I could also get out of the Navy.
“I said, ‘I guess I could go home then.’ ‘Yes,’ was his response.
“I then just pointed at my ‘home of record’ on my medical sheet showing my Hawaii address. He then proceeded to just check off all the boxes, stamp and signed the form, and essentially told me to ‘get out of here.’ I still smile thinking about it.”
"The Air Force suggested Wendell Hopkins of Kaneohe open a bank account in the United States in order to receive his retirement checks more quickly “because your retirement pay checks are mailed to an address in a foreign country.”
Wendy Tolleson said she went to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville between 1993 and 1997.
“An older man who was well educated and had traveled to Europe asked me, if he should travel to Hawaii, should he bring bottled water!
“And what kind of exchange rate we had with the dollar versus our money.
“I reminded him that Hawaii was a part of the U.S. and that we used the American dollar because we were an American state. And that Honolulu was (and here I got my dig in) a modern city, larger than Knoxville, with way more interesting things to do!”
“How did I like living in the West Indies? And which was the best ferry service from California to Honolulu: Los Angeles or Catalina Island?"
I’m required to understand this, because all my grandparents are from England.
The Channel Islands are not part of the UK. They are the last remaining bits of the parts of France that William the Conqueror held before he conquered England (1066 and all that). The Queen is lord of those islands entirely independently from being Queen of the UK.
Ironically, for me, a misconception was how close Las Vegas is to LA time-wise. I had assumed it was going to take longer to drive since California is a large state and I had just driven through a lot of other large states. Instead, it was eminently doable with a lot of time to spare in the day, (but not if I were to do it twice in a day as a day trip.)
Every few years, there’s a story in Canadian news media about someone who ended up in Sydney (Nova Scotia), rather than their intended destination of Sydney (Australia) - or vice versa. This must happen between other pairs of cities as well, but I don’t hear about them. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/03/31/dutch-teen-ends-up-in-the-wrong-sydney.html
I recall the story of an LA resident who thought he was flying to Oakland but ended up in Aukland instead.
Also, some folks have reported ending up in Portland, Maine rather than their intended destination of Portland, Oregon.
My wife and I, in a hurry to catch a connection to Houston when our plane arrived very late in Nashville, dashed out to the gate agent and asked where the flight to Houston was. She pointed us right to the gate across the way, and said “they’re just calling for final boarding”. Great, we dashed over, the harried gate agent there just waved us on. We hopped on, couldn’t find our particular seat assignment. Those seats didn’t exist. Flight attendant said “don’t worry, it happens all the time, there’s plenty of empty seats” so we grabbed two and arrived at Houston Hobby airport. When our luggage went missing, we discovered we were supposed to have caught a flight to Houston International airport (where our luggage circled endlessly on the carousel waiting for us), not Houston Hobby. Big laffs.
I used to work at the cruise terminal in Galveston and part of my job was to make sure passengers got on the bus to the right airport. Hobby is at least an hour further south than Bush (Houston International) and has different airlines.
Despite it being my job to know where to send these people, inevitably someone would fight with me over which bus they wanted to board. And once or twice, I stood back and let them get on the wrong one. When I say they fought with me, I mean I had to call security because things were about to get physical. I’m a 5 foot tall woman and I’m not going to battle you over your willful stupidity.
And then there’s Rochester. Every once in a while somebody who should have gone to NY winds up in Minnesota, or vice versa.
And speaking of geographical mistakes, I can never remember where the other one is. I know there are two Rochesters, I know the one near me is in NY (duh), but all I ever seem to remember about the other is that it’s somewhere else in the country entirely. I had to look it up for this post, and will probably forget it again. Sorry, Minnesota!
(There’s at least one in the UK, too, isn’t there? – oh, good grief, no wonder I can’t remember which state “the other” Rochester’s in. Wikipedia says 19 US states have a Rochester; Minnesota’s just the next largest. And at least 2 in the UK, one in Canada, one in Australia. I don’t know how many of them have airports.)
Guide books to Panama - as perhaps @colibri can tell you - warn you to double check that you’ve chosen a flight to Panama City, Panama, not Panama City, Florida. That they’ve had to put those warnings in there leads me to believe people have done it.
Same with San Jose, Costa Rica vs. San Jose, California.
My grandmother lived in Nieuwdorp, NL and thought she was being taken across the Scheldt to visit Oostburg, NL, about 10 miles away. She ended up in Oostburg, WI USA. Apparently her concept of emigrating was unclear at the time. She was only 5.
The funniest one like that I know is at least two instances of people in California trying to catch a flight to Oakland, and mishearing the boarding announcement and ending up in Auckland, New Zealand. Here’s one from 1985.
I was working at a firm located in downtown Wichita, Kansas. We purchased some new software and contracted with a company rep to help us install and configure. He informed me that he would be flying in on Sunday evening, staying at an airport hotel, and would be at the office at 9:00 Monday morning. 9:00 came and went; finally, an hour or so later, he called and told me he couldn’t find our location, because he couldn’t find the street. (This was before navigation systems and cell phones.) During the conversation, I finally determined that he was in downtown Wichita Falls, Texas.
I once shared a house in Waterloo, Ontario with a guy from Germany. He bought a used van and said that he was going to take a weekend trip to Thunder Bay. We had to point out to him that it takes 15 hours to drive there non-stop (plus another 15 to drive back non-stop), so it probably wouldn’t leave a lot of time for sight-seeing. It’s about the same distance from Berlin to Rome.
There’s also San Jose Del Cabo which is the name of the townlet and airport adjacent to Cabo San Lucas, the tourist destination at the tip of Baja California in Mexico.
From some of my employer’s hubs we have non-stops to all 3 "San Jose"s. Add in a bunch of folks whose English is limited and it’s a recipe for hijinks.
Several years ago there was a British man who wanted to fly from the US to Manchester, UK, but he mistakenly booked a flight to Manchester, New Hampshire. As I recall he realized something wasn’t right when he boarded a tiny regional jet for his “transatlantic” flight, but at that point he figured there was nothing he could do and took the flight to New Hampshire.
