Now it seems the gods are swarming.

The Des Moines businessman and regents president swears the following story is true, and we'll say at the top that I absolutely believe him, having had some personal experience with angry gods.

Gartner was heading home from a vacation in Hawai'i a few days ago, when his Northwest Airlines flight from Maui made a quick, routine, scheduled hop over to Kona, where it picked up more passengers before heading to the Mainland.

Everything seemed fine in Kona, until a couple of mechanics were called on board and went into the cockpit and started poking around. Gartner, who was sitting up front, heard some talk about an electrical system problem and the pilot saying the plane couldn't go until it was fixed.

"The mechanics called Minneapolis for some advice and they tried something and that didn't help," Gartner said. "They called Honolulu and that didn't help. Then I heard one of the mechanics say something about lava."

Gartner said the captain then got on the plane's intercom and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, the mechanics are Hawaiian, and they have suggested that somebody might be taking home as a souvenir a piece of lava from the islands. Lava is sacred to the people in Hawaii and must never be taken off the islands. So if anyone, by chance, has some lava with them, would they discreetly hand it to a cabin attendant and perhaps that will help."

Gartner said pretty much everybody on the plane had a quiet laugh and kept hoping the mechanics would figure out a way to get the plane's electrical problem fixed.

You can guess what happened next.

"About 15 minutes later, the pilot came back on the intercom and said thank you very much for returning the lava," Gartner said. "The pilot said everything's fine now and we'll be taking off in a few minutes."

Gartner, a notorious skeptic, wasn't buying any of it.

"I'm thinking it's all b.s., so I asked the flight attendant if somebody really did turn in some lava. She said, 'You bet.' I mean, just like that, everything was fine. We were two hours late, but everything was fine with the plane."