TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: AIRPORT JITTERS

By Grant McGee

Things sure are different in this “Post September 11th” world.  I haven’t been on a plane since that time.  I’m not really that inclined to do so, what with all the hassles and new list of do’s and don’ts for the airport.

I first started reconsidering air travel just a few months after the September 11^th attacks.  I was working at a weekly newspaper and had to take care of some vending machines in the Tucson International Airport.  Once a week I had to go in and re-stock the machines with fresh newspapers.

Because I parked right at the terminal my car had to be inspected.  Mr. Policeman would walk up, have me open all my doors, my engine compartment and trunk and do an inspection.  Then he’d take a long handled mirror and look under the car. 

Then I’d grab my stacks of papers and mosey inside the terminal.  Then I had to go through the security machine.  After doing that a few times I got to where I took off my belt, put on flip-flops and only had my keys and wallet in my pockets, no pocket change…no pocket knife…it cut down on the time I spent with the friendly, neighborhood Transportation Safety Administration inspectors.

One day there was no policeman nearby, he was all the way at the other end of the terminal.  I waved, I yelled, I whistled for Mr. Policeman.  I started doing jumping jacks and yelling, “HEY.  HEY!  HEEEEEEY!”

Finally Mr. Policeman came strolling down.

“Sir, do you have a problem?  You’re scaring the passengers,” he said looking at me sideways.  I think he was pondering whether to haul me to jail.

“I just wanted to get an inspection.”

“Sir, there’s a phone just inside the door to call for an inspection.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

As I walked into the terminal I pondered his words:  “You’re scaring the passengers.”  I wondered what kind of world was forming around me that my fellow countrymen would be afraid of a lanky dude down at the other end of the terminal doing jumping-jacks…but people have been afraid of lesser things I reckon.

Then there was the time I caused a sensation at the George H.W. Bush International Airport in Houston with my 18-wheeler.

There’s a road that goes to the tractor-trailer loading area at the airport there and there’s a road to the main terminal.  They’re side by side.  In the age before GPS thingys I took the wrong road.

I ended up in front of the passenger terminal at the George H.W. Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas.  I thought I must’ve looked like an elephant amongst a herd of cattle.

People were staring.

People were pointing.

Then I saw a hand stuck in the air, waving, at me.  The hand belonged to a policeman.

I rolled my window down.

“I’m sorry, sir, I made a wrong turn,” I wanted to be sure to speak first and let the dude know that I knew I messed up.

“No shit,” said the policeman as he came up to my window.  He spoke softly but firmly, “You’re scaring the passengers.  Now just get this thing out of here.”

“Yes sir,” I said and rolled up my window.

Now I could understand people being afraid of an out-of-place 18-wheeler at an airport in the months after the September 11^th attacks.

But a guy doing jumping-jacks?