Joe Biden slipped going up the stairs of Airforce One. Not once, but thrice. So what? But Republicans mocked; Democrats excused. Me?... I felt for Joe. It's not funny. Those are steep steps. You could die on them. They could be the president's very own Stairway to Heaven.
I did the calculation. It's easy from the photos above. The slope is 40 degrees. Now, that's the slope of a Black Run on a ski resort. And if you've ever skied one of those (I have) you know they're steep and if you fall you're going to slide an awful long way. It was luck for Joe he was holding on, otherwise he too could have fallen down an awful long way. A friend of ours fell down our staircase a decade ago. It was a shock. We fitted a handhold straight after and I've held on to it ever since.
The problem here is that of the people around the president none is in their seventh, let alone their eighth, decade. The president is the oldest man, full stop. The others -- his aides, the marines, the pilots, the sundry helpers, the airport staff -- they are all in their 30s to 50s. They don't know that when you get to 70+, stairs are no longer something you take for granted. Even for Joe, who's in pretty good shape. Let alone a Trump, or me, a septuagenerian like them, but more the body shape of the Orange Man than the Sleepy One. So, these younger folks surrounding the president don't treat stairs as seriously as their boss does. And their boss is not going to admit he's got anything to worry about. I'm sure Joe will say "I'm fine, don't worry about it". But the simple truth is that he ought worry about it. And therefore so should the people around him.
You can die from falling down the steps. In the BBC mini series Life, the David Aston character (Adrian Lestor) mourns the recent death of his fiancée, killed in a fall down the local shopping mall's escalator. I think of that these days, when I get on an escalator. I no longer take them, even escalators, for granted.
So, I call for -- indeed I predict -- doing away with the steps up to Airforce One. It's a bit strange they still have them. What for? Security? or just to have the photo ops? Either way, do away with them. Do away with them, I say! Bring Airforce One up to the Air-bridge like the rest of us. That's what ought to happen. And that's what I predict will happen in this age of octogenarian heads of state.
We don't really want their climb into the presidential airplane to be their own Stairway to Heaven, do we?
