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infrequent flyer
Jun. 14th, 2004 04:48 pmTurtles do not have a reputation for being adventurous travelers. We didn't evolve that way. You may have noticed our glorious soaring wings, our ability to run easily across plains and see where we're going? Right.
I've done very little air travel since the war started. I prefer to stay home and invite my personal adventures to come to me (though sometimes they pick me up at various bus stations along the east coast.) My last job required a fair number of business trips where I had to spend a few days in Alabama, or a week in South Carolina. And when I was in grad school, the terrestrial part of my research was divided among three widely separated cities. So I have a lot of memories of airports, and the timing of the process, and what it feels like to interact with the crowd and the different kinds of staff...but it's all from before the war, except for a few playdates in winter 2001 and summer 2002. A lot has changed. An awful lot has changed.
My colleagues and I used to have a compact kit of safety gear and hand tools that we could bring as cabin baggage. I preferred to wear my steel-toed safety boots, so my carry-on bag would be lighter. In some airports, security guards wanted me to take the boots off when the metal detector beeped, in others, the guards wanted me to leave them on while they went over me with the handheld detector (sometimes over, and over, and over.) When I took my boots off while standing in line, and put them on the conveyor belt to pad through the detector in my heavy wool socks, all the other passengers stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. This weekend, all the passengers were taking their shoes off. Even shoes that don't have steel toe caps. I was asked to remove my sandals. I saw several experienced travelers who could not have been more than 5 years old, but they knew the drill already...they took off their little shoes and sweaters, and put them on the conveyor belt.
Part of airport security used to be trying to keep people from stealing your stuff. Sensible people tried to keep a hand, or at least an eye, on their belongings at all times. That practice seems to have been abandoned. I wasn't traveling with anything profoundly valuable to me. But I felt really uncomfortable about putting down my passport and ticket, turning my back on them, and walking away. I was using a belt-pouch for all my pocketry, to make it easy to put everything metal (or lumpy and potentially dubious) in the scanner. But I wasn't allowed to hold the passport in my hand when walking through the metal detector. One of the guards also objected to my holding a book. (It was Anne of Avonlea, which is hardly a threatening text.)
Most of the time, it's not obvious that my country is at war. My subway station has lots of warnings about safety and watchfulness - most of them could almost be about fire safety or accident avoidance. But a few start, "Peace means...." Nice peace you have here. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it. My favorite is, "Peace means sometimes you have to speak up." It shows a pretty young woman talking on a cellphone, looking over her shoulder as if she's gossiping and just the least little bit anxious that the subject of her gossip might be nearby.
I've done very little air travel since the war started. I prefer to stay home and invite my personal adventures to come to me (though sometimes they pick me up at various bus stations along the east coast.) My last job required a fair number of business trips where I had to spend a few days in Alabama, or a week in South Carolina. And when I was in grad school, the terrestrial part of my research was divided among three widely separated cities. So I have a lot of memories of airports, and the timing of the process, and what it feels like to interact with the crowd and the different kinds of staff...but it's all from before the war, except for a few playdates in winter 2001 and summer 2002. A lot has changed. An awful lot has changed.
My colleagues and I used to have a compact kit of safety gear and hand tools that we could bring as cabin baggage. I preferred to wear my steel-toed safety boots, so my carry-on bag would be lighter. In some airports, security guards wanted me to take the boots off when the metal detector beeped, in others, the guards wanted me to leave them on while they went over me with the handheld detector (sometimes over, and over, and over.) When I took my boots off while standing in line, and put them on the conveyor belt to pad through the detector in my heavy wool socks, all the other passengers stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. This weekend, all the passengers were taking their shoes off. Even shoes that don't have steel toe caps. I was asked to remove my sandals. I saw several experienced travelers who could not have been more than 5 years old, but they knew the drill already...they took off their little shoes and sweaters, and put them on the conveyor belt.
Part of airport security used to be trying to keep people from stealing your stuff. Sensible people tried to keep a hand, or at least an eye, on their belongings at all times. That practice seems to have been abandoned. I wasn't traveling with anything profoundly valuable to me. But I felt really uncomfortable about putting down my passport and ticket, turning my back on them, and walking away. I was using a belt-pouch for all my pocketry, to make it easy to put everything metal (or lumpy and potentially dubious) in the scanner. But I wasn't allowed to hold the passport in my hand when walking through the metal detector. One of the guards also objected to my holding a book. (It was Anne of Avonlea, which is hardly a threatening text.)
Most of the time, it's not obvious that my country is at war. My subway station has lots of warnings about safety and watchfulness - most of them could almost be about fire safety or accident avoidance. But a few start, "Peace means...." Nice peace you have here. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it. My favorite is, "Peace means sometimes you have to speak up." It shows a pretty young woman talking on a cellphone, looking over her shoulder as if she's gossiping and just the least little bit anxious that the subject of her gossip might be nearby.
