The Only Way to Fly...

Rude awakenings..

OK. I'll admit it. I haven't been on an airplane since sometime around 1992. Y'all know me, I like to DRIVE... it's a control thing at it's very heart, and a "stop and smell the roses and see the sights and talk to strangers" thing for the rest of me.

I know things changed after September 11th, but, since I don't fly, I haven't been playing really close attention.

Until today.

PFS, one of my heretofore unseen BFF'S, was heading for Monterey today. She lives in Georgia, and was one of the people I did NOT get to see on the big trip in 2006. She had a lay over at LAX and we were going to meet and sit and talk until her flight took off..

Or at least I THOUGHT that was the plan..

Turns out I can't meet her at the plane.

I can't sit with her in the pub in the lounge.

I can't meet her anywhere in the airport and sit and talk.

This, in a nutshell, pisses me off... to the extreme.

I used to love airports. I was the one to take you if you needed to go, and I would go with you right up to the door of the plane. When you left, I would sit and watch all the people arrive and leave and see, mostly, the very best in people. It was like the beginning of the movie "Love, Actually"... In the early 80's, a friend of mine was a bartender at my local pub and also owned a T-shirt place. A childhood friend of his, nicknamed "Maurice", was coming out to visit. A shy, quiet fellow.

So..

A dozen or more of us, with special T shirts made JUST FOR HIS ARRIVAL, piled in the back of my old van and hit the airport with a huge sign that said "MAURICE, GO HOME"... we embarrassed the stuffing out of him and had the most wonderful time.

All gone now..

So I managed to pick up PFS and we drove to the beach and sat and talked for a while.

It was Ok, but..

I still have the PFS GO HOME sign..

sigh..

Back when an airline was an airline...