I just came across a short video from American Airlines pilot and Youtuber Steve Scheibner, whose followers know him as Captain Steeeve (that’s not a typo — it’s how he speeells it).
He was responding to a question from a fan: Do passengers applaud when a pilot lands the airplane smoothly?
“In the old days they kind of used to” but not much any more, said the genial Scheibner, who is also a retired U.S. Navy pilot. “I think it has to do with the separation in our culture ever since the pandemic, and people wearing the headsets and all of that. They don’t connect with one another the way they used to and — I don’t know — we kind of lost something.”
I’ve been on just one flight where we applauded the landing. It erupted after we’d endured terrifying, sustained turbulence — the kind that had me praying to my late brother Al, a former Air Force and commercial-airline pilot, to keep us alive.
“Please, Al, help,” I begged. “Can you do us a solid here?”
When we safely landed, the cabin erupted in whoops and applause. And in my mind’s eye, I saw Al — one of the most devilish people I’d ever known — mischievously nodding his head, a sneaky grin on his face, pointing to his chest, like, That was me, people. You’re welcome.
God, I miss him.
Anyway, Captain Steeeve’s video got me wondering: What would the vibe of this country feel like if we collectively started applauding people not just in recognition of a job well done but for the sheer group fun of cheering someone for no reason other than that they’re right in front of us?
I mean, why not?
That’s what happened back in 2000 in Philadelphia, when the city hosted the Republican National Convention. The organizers were tasked with recruiting 12,000 volunteers to support the event. When 15,000 signed up (because Philadelphians! are! enthusiastic!), the organizers faced a dilemma: “What the hell do we do with all of them?”
What would the vibe of this country feel like if we collectively started applauding people not just in recognition of a job well done but for the sheer group fun of cheering someone for no reason other than that they’re right in front of us?
Their inspired response: Deploy all those extra hands to the airport, hotels, and city sidewalks and have them wildly applaud as conventioneers came and went. The squads were called “The Clappers,” and some deemed them the best part of the convention-visitor experience.
You know who else loved them?
Non-conventioneers who unknowingly wandered into the happy nonsense, like a Philly guy named Andy Cocchia who came upon The Clappers outside of Reading Market. They’d formed two lines on the pavement, and as Cocchia walked down the middle, they applauded him.
“That’s the first time in my whole life having people cheer me on,” Cocchia told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. “It makes me feel important.”
Couldn’t you just cry? That something that simple was that touching?
Think, too, of how fun it must’ve been for The Clappers to be part of something so absurdly friendly, something that declared, We don’t know you but we see you and we’re glad you’re here, so GO, Random Stranger, GO!
I love how the Clappers were spared the joy-sucking work of judging whether the clapp-ees were worthy of the applause. Instead, they got to exuberantly back-flip into the bracing sea of human connection without first having to hunker in the hot parking lot next to the beach, pencils and spreadsheets in hand, analyzing the pro-cons of getting wet.
They just clapped. Man, what a relief, to give the judge a day off and just fucking clap.
The Clappers disbanded after the convention, and that’s a shame. Because not just Philly but our whole damn country need more expressions of presumed high regard like this if we’re to start cooling the heat of knee-jerk suspicion that’s keeping us apart.
I mean, have we ever been more wedded to apprehension of one another, more quick to express contempt for those unlike us, more committed to being incurious about why people think, feel and tick the way they do?
In our brittle, amped-up wariness of all that makes us different, we’re blowing the chance to revel in all we have in common. Which is so dumb, because humans are wired to want and need pretty much the same things:
Fairness, safety, love and good health for ourselves and those we love. To do good and feel proud — and when we fuck up, to be given a second chance instead of a boot to the wolves beyond the campfire. To be seen, heard, and known for who we are, in our gloriously bumbling humanity, and not messed with for it.
“That’s the first time in my whole life having people cheer me on …It makes me feel important.” — Andy Cocchia to The Philadelphia Inquirer
Mostly, we want to know we belong, not just to ourselves and our niche communities but to the whole of humanity whose only entry requirement is that we’re born into it. Thinking we don’t — a mindset being promoted and exploited by the wealthy and powerful for their own gain — is what got us where we are now. And what keeps us stuck is the now-normalized presumption that others are a threat — unless and until they prove they’re not.
What will unstick us is an imperfect (but trying) commitment to unconditional respect for our fellow man. What’ll make it feel less heavy is some sweet-ass applause along the way. Talk about creating a condition where connection between opposites at least has a chance to take root.
Ronnie, OMG, you’re deluded, I can hear some of you thinking (because mind-reading is my side hustle). This country is on fire. Now is not the time to make nice because everyone literally is out to get us. I mean, keep up, for God’s sake!
I hear you. But every firefighter knows that you extinguish a blaze by starving at least one angle of The Fire Triangle — fuel, heat and / or oxygen it needs to burn. Tamp down even one of those elements — in this instance, the fuel of automatic suspicion — and the flames can’t survive.
But we still have to choose to tamp.
Back in 2016, when I was a metro columnist at The Philadelphia Daily News (the best job I ever had at the best city paper there ever was), I hosted a gathering of Hillary, Trump and undecided voters a week before the presidential election to see if there was a way to find common ground about what we wanted for ourselves and the country.
I was nervous, because the pre-election vitriol was ratcheting higher every day. But the night turned out to be a total kumbaya, with people hugging as they left, friending each other on Facebook and excited to meet again after the election.
A week later, when Trump won, a participant who voted for him posted something contemptuous on Facebook along the lines of SUCK IT, HILLARY LOVERS! WE’RE IN POWER NOW! MWAHAHAHAH!!
Another participant, a Hillary voter who had laughed with and hugged the woman at the gathering and connected with her on Facebook, was devastated when she read the post. And she called me to say the entire gathering had been a farce, a total waste of time.
“How could she write that post, knowing I’d see it?” she said, anguished. “I appreciate your hosting us but I’ll never do anything like that again. It didn’t change a thing.”
The gathering was never supposed to be a one-time fix of all that divides us, I told her.
It was meant to be a start.
“Please don’t squander the start!” I begged her. “You two bonded deeply over some very meaningful stuff. You can use your new connection to continue the conversation. Why not tell her, truthfully, from the heart, that her post hurts and confuses you?”
I was so desperate for her to take action, I even gave her a script.
“You could say, ‘Hey, can we grab coffee? I so loved meeting you and felt such a connection! As you know, I supported Hillary for reasons that were really meaningful and important to me. And we both discussed your equally meaningful and important reasons for your vote, too.’”
“‘It seemed like we really got to know the best parts of each other’s hearts. And that’s why I feel so confused by your post. Maybe you weren’t thinking of me when you wrote it, but I felt sad and misunderstood when I read it. Would you be willing to tell me why you wrote what you wrote? I’d like to hear, truly and respectfully, your reasons. And if you’d rather not, well, thanks for just having this conversation right now.’”
“No way,” she said, weepily. “I’m done.”
Suffice to say that, since 2016, our willingness to engage respectfully with each other, especially when we’re hurt or upset, has only decreased.
We want to know we belong, not just to ourselves and our niche communities but to the whole of humanity whose only entry requirement is that we’re born into it.
Because that’s what happens when enough of us decide we’re done with each other, when we’re too scared, or heartbroken, or angry, or exhausted to take even a first step toward connection. When fearing or hating those we differ with has become normalized. When engaging in vulnerable, respectful connection with “the other” is dismissed as the act of chumps.
But, Jesus Christ, people, something has to shake us awake. And I think applause might be a neutral and fun way to get started (because God forbid we should have fun).
Which brings up a memory. When our daughter Addie was a preschooler, she had the annoying habit of waking early and expecting my husband and I to play with her before we were ready to drag our tired asses out of bed. So my husband invented an activity that allowed her to let off energy while we stayed under the covers.
She’d stand behind our closed bedroom door as my husband, like a Vegas barker introducing a show’s main act, would bellow, “And noooooow, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and give a loud Philadelphia welcome and round of applause to the star of our morning, MISS! ADELINE! JUDSON! WEYRICH!”
We’d yell and clap and she’d smash the door open, run into the room and prance around like she owned the place, reveling in the perfection of just being herself. After 10 rounds of this, my husband and I were finally in the mood to make coffee, and our kid’s day had gotten off to a fine start.
If the clapping gesture could work for cranky parents and their needy child, I think it has legs in the bigger world.
What if every work meeting began with a little round of applause for each attendee?
What if a bus driver led applause for each new rider — or if the passengers applauded the driver every time he opened the door?
What if a tableful of coffee shop customers commandeered a table by the door and applauded patrons as they entered and left?
Me, I have a fantasy of assembling a bunch of clappers and heading to Philadelphia International Airport when the last red-eye of the night arrives. We’d commandeer the baggage area and applaud travelers as they staggered to the carousel for their luggage. We’d whoop and holler, “Yay! You’re here! Welcome to Philly — we hope you’ll love us as much as we already love you! Go, RANDOM TRAVELER, GO!”
I’m only half-joking about this. And to those who say it sounds crazy, I agree. The only thing crazier would be not doing something like this at all.
Because we’re on fire. The bucket brigade needs to start somewhere.
Ronnie Polaneczky, a former Daily News columnist, is founder of Ronnie Listens. Sign up for her Substack, where this piece originally ran.
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