Flights of Fancy

I watched a Bette Davis movie a few weeks ago: All About Eve. She is an aging starlet being undermined and ultimately displaced by a conniving ingénue. The story has all the hallmarks of drama from that era, the early 1950s. Davis is past her prime, and slowly slipping into that bottomless vat of acid that marked her later work.

What struck me about the story had absolutely nothing to do with the usual gushing praise or scathing criticism that falls on those rosy, but heavily censored dramas. One scene jumped out.

The stars accompany a friend to Idlewild (now Kennedy) Airport in New York. Bette Davis and her unmemorable costar accompany a successful director friend to see him off on his flight to Los Angeles for a stint in Hollywood. They walk to the edge of the tarmac (!) before waving goodbye against a background of roaring aircraft engines.

I saw my grandchildren off today. They were on their way back to Ireland as unaccompanied minors. I required a special dispensation and pass to sit with them at the gate until their flight was called. This after almost an hour of discussion with a gate agent, trying to decide if they should even be allowed onto the plane. There was some discussion about their lack of a visa to enter Ireland. Ireland does not require or issue visas to minor children, but through some overly nit-picky reading of the rules, they could leave on their own but not come back, even if their mother was waiting there to greet them. Eventually, the agent reluctantly agreed to allow them to board their flight.

The point is that in sixty years, we have gone from an overly permissive, trusting society to one so paranoid even a child cannot return unencumbered to her mother. I’m not opposed to airport screening. I think it’s a good thing that someone is watching closely to prevent anyone wishing to do us harm from succeeding.

What I object to is the degree to which we have acquiesced to this universal intrusiveness. We all march through screening like cattle on the way to slaughter. Hardly anyone objects.

I object! But my response is first of all queasy fright whenever the word “airport” enters my imagination. I feel the same as when I load up TurboTax in anticipation of April 15. My second response is to avoid travel that involves security screening. We recently drove to Niagara Falls, Canada, but I refused to cross back into the US there, because I dreaded having to pass through the clutches of Homeland Security. Twice.

I have nothing to hide. I won’t even let my wife smuggle produce over the US/Canada border, but that doesn’t alleviate my unease. The scrutiny alone is unsettling.

I am now reluctant to cross any border or board any flight because of the ordeal it requires.

I’ll smell my own shoes, thank you very much.