Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 13:26:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Gone flying...a report I did take a flying trip over the past weekend, and that was the last time ever for me. I bought the tickets last August, a round-trip from Nashville to Boston. After 9/11, with all the new "security" measures taken, I said publicly that I'll boycott any and all sheep carriers until they go bankrupt or else change their evil ways of making their cargo safe for the criminals. My flight experience only made that resolution easier to support. OK, the story actual. The airlines "suggest" to come to one's airport 2 hours before the departure time. My flight from Nashville was leaving at 6 am Friday morning, but since the airport opens at 5 am only, I got there at 5 am. It was already full of people. With only carry-on luggage, I went directly to the security screen. A huge crowd there, moving very slowly. My turn comes. Loud danger-indicating noises erupt from the watchful machine; my body is then analyzed by a magic metal-searching wand, and it discovers more zippers in my 15-or-so-year old jacket than I could have ever dreamed possible to be found in one piece of clothes. All was done friendly and efficiently. Active Army soldiers with M-16's stand and mull around. The flight is about 1/3 full: 13 passengers in a 37-people plane; the gate-keeper was expecting 30 who haven't cancelled. No problems on the way out. The way back was a different matter. Boston is a law unto itself. Going through the security, I see two ME (Middle-Eastern) men shouting excitedly in a Klingon dialect and pointing wildly at another man, black - for something or other. All three men are part of the _security_ there. They and all others are sourly and hostile, clearly hating passengers and/or their work. My boots elicit their customary noise due to the little metal they contain. An elderly asian security lady, too lazy to pass the magic wand over my feet, directs me to take my boots off and walk through the screen again, in my socks. I comply, of course. Passing through, there is more commotion. A man whose wallet and keys have passed through the security in a separate (from him) plastic box, complains that his keys have disappeared on their voyage through the maws of the X-ray machine, together with his cell phone. He is assured by the just arrived security supervisor that he must be dreaming or else is inventing a new and improved reality. I move on. There is a long 4-hour wait in front for me. The barn the passengers are herded in to wait for their flights, has no restrooms. (This is Boston.) One has to go back into unsecure area, without so much as "sorry for the inconvenience." I accept the fate and go. On the way back through the same security screen, I try to avoid the elderly asian lady and instead maneuver myself into the attention of some other man, of indefinite (to me) origins. He turns out to be civilized, and doesn't ask me to get down to my socks; instead, he performs his magic wand routine over me and then asks if I mind being patted down. I don't mind, of course, and he lovingly gives me my first-ever experience of a life-time, making me wonder afterwards if something on my trip to the local meeting of the American Mathematical Society has turned me into an inviting object of daring gay longings. A lot of people are waiting around, some are clearly tired and napping. The public information system announces continuous delays of flights to and from the JFK due to equipment malfunctions. Finally, our flight is called. We board the airplane. And wait. The departure time has come and gone. The plane is almost full. The flight attendant suddenly goes by all the passengers and asks them their names. Some excited shouts erupt in the cockpit. I ask the stew what the problem is. There is one passenger who has checked in but who isn't on the plane, and the airport doesn't give us the clearance to depart, she replies. I ask if the missing mystery passenger has his luggage on the plane. Unknown. More wait. Finally the decision is taken, not clear by whom, that the gate-keeper must have made a counting mistake and no passenger is missing after all. Take off and out we go. Everyone waits to be blown out from the sky at any moment. Nothing happens, to many a disappointed expectation; we are just 50 minutes late arriving to Nashville. Home is good. Flying is dangerous for your health and life. The airport "security" is a joke. Anyone half-so-inclined can bring whatever he wants onto the plane. The only realistic defence against the potential demons is to have the crew and passengers armed. Until that time, I will remain forever your faithful The former air-traveler.