The first time I flew on an airplane was 1977.  I did have a passport as I was going to Europe, but not much else was the same.  There were no rolling bags – only heavy Samsonite luggage loaded with enough stuff to last me for 30 days in the south of France.  I have a clear memory of bolting through JFK with 3 other friends to try to catch a flight.  Back in those days the thought of flying was pretty terrifying – and I was easily made motion sick.

Today it literally takes about double the time to fly.  Bags have to be checked 45 min prior to departure.  Despite TSA Pre-Check, multiple forms of ID and careful packing of every conceivable element – there are delays.  In cabin liquids are limited to 3 oz (help me) all of which must be packed into a quart sized ziplock bag (what happened to sales of that product when Homeland Security decided on that requirement).  Sometimes you can wear a jacket and shoes, other times not.  Sometimes computers go out.  This last time plastic ear plugs (like you’d see on a construction site) were banned from around my neck – like the foam posed some threat.  The underwire in my bras no longer sets things off, but eyeglasses perched on top of my head will.  We wait in lines to wait in lines.  People drag bags into the cabin to save $25 to have them travel out of the way in the baggage compartment.  Gas is half what it was 2 years ago, but flight costs are up about 40%.

There is a lot more variety in the airports when it comes to food and beverages.  Of course, it comes at a price.  And then there is just the uncertainty of everything.  Will someone go nuts on the plane?  Will it be the pilot?  Are the mechanics overworked and frustrated?  Hell, the last flight I was on this week was delayed 37 due to insufficient toilet paper – which is deemed a mechanical failure and requires documentation of such mechanical failure.  However, none of us wanted to be on a 4.5 hour flight without TP so we sat patiently while they worked it out.  I wondered if the pilot was suicidal.  Wondered about the mental status of a passenger with odd affect and poor eye contact.

Flip side – I’m in sunny California where the weather is perfect, the people are thin and beautiful, and workplaces are literally so tricked out that they rival high end hotels.  Technology is king and youth is celebrated.  Cars plug in to charging stations and veganism is rampant.  Local university students are not lost with their noses in books, but rather in smartphone screens.  They don’t talk to each other, they type at some nameless person who could be 6 inches or 600 miles away.  Do they know what they are missing? Do I fully understand that which they know and I see only from the outside?  Questions.  No answers.