Word: raine
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...reason for the confusing signals from the control tower became clear once our plane touched down on the rain-drenched runway, littered with wind- blown bits of sagebrush. The narrow ribbon of tarmac at Zvartnots airfield looked like a crowded parking lot: an American military C-141, its tail marked with a large Stars and Stripes, an Algerian transport plane, a commercial Austrian airliner -- in all, about 15 foreign planes, not counting a regular fleet of Soviet Ilyushin 76s and Tupelev 154s. Hundreds of dark-clad figures milled about. The usual tight military control that exists at every Soviet airport...
...lanky young Russian in a rain-soaked khaki jacket immediately appeared at the plane's open doorway, his figure outlined against the leaden, gray afternoon...
Grief and bewilderment etched the weary, unshaven faces of the airport volunteers, whose bloodshot eyes seemed to brim with tears. Workers formed a human chain in the pouring rain to unload the plane's cargo of pain-killers, penicillin, iodine swabs and bandages donated by American companies. They worked by flashlight well into the night. A young man took me aside and whispered, "Be sure to tell everyone in America and Europe how thankful...
...rain-streaked faces of the speakers blurred in the gathering darkness. A bleary-eyed Yerevan doctor in a fur-collared coat who had worked for four whole days without sleep. A bespectacled economist who told of digging out one lone survivor from among 48 corpses in a Leninakan classroom. An airport worker who had held a dying child in his arms. A grizzled old man in a shabby winter coat simply shook his head from side to side. "There is nothing left there," he said. "Nothing. Everything must be built from scratch...
This honest rejection of fraudulently uplifting sentiment is admirable in a way. But Rain Man's restraint is, finally, rather like Raymond's gabble. It discourages connections, keeping you out instead of drawing you in. -- Richard Schickel...