The other day I went into Starbucks to get the usual: a tall decaf Americano with room. I usually get the order wrong in this highly complex world of baristas and cups of coffee that cost well over $4. Sure enough, my order was translated to become one tall with room decaf Americano. Ordering coffee has become an art. The monthly special is peppermint mocha gingerbread latte. In addition to the three flavored syrups, the coffee can be made with a variety of choices: decaf, regular, or half of each; number of shots (at least one person has six); types of milk including cream (yes some people actually have hot whipped cream), organic, soy, half and half, 2%, or skim; then the extras: whip or no whip, dry or wet, foam or no foam, extra hot. All must be asked for in the right order as little Xs snake down the side of the cup. There is a lot of social responsibility to ordering coffee.
How long ago it seems that we were happy with a cup of joe and a doughnut to dunk in it.
But it’s not only the coffee that’s gone high tech. It’s also the equipment to make it. No more metal pots with little glass knobs on top burbling away on the stove. Today’s
espresso machines remind me of the old steam tractors: polished brass, hissing valves, and steaming fluid. I like to watch the cups lined up in an assembly line along the shelf beside these gods of foam. They look like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie.
But even that’s not all. Coffee today is more than high tech. It’s global. Our local Starbucks will give you a free coffee if you bring a picture of you outside another Starbucks. These pictures are pinned on the wall. They now cover the world from the Forbidden City in China to Turkey to Russia and all throughout Europe and the Americas. They show that Starbucks is now literally everywhere and that ordinary people have gone literally everywhere. This amazes me.
When I was a child a holiday meant camping up in the mountains or driving to the beach. We even went for a vacation once on a Greyhound bus. A trip to Europe or Hawaii required years of savings and, once taken, was trotted out for company with the help of slide projectors. Those who were wealthy enough had other ways to flaunt their travels. Suitcases used to be plastered with labels from exotic places: the Danieli in Venice, the Hotel Geneve, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, all showing the cachet of their owners. You never see those labels any more. I suppose they look gauche now that such travel is within most people’s reach. Such status symbols as remain are more discreet—a luggage tag from the Concorde (allowed since it no longer flies) or a golden membership key from some exclusive London club. For most people the immortality of having been somewhere seems to survive only on the wall at Starbucks.
Far be it for me to complain. I’ve had a couple of free coffees myself. But what is going to happen when all the Starbucks have been visited and duly photographed? It has to happen. The world is a finite place after all. Some time in the future, people wanting a free coffee will find themselves challenged to find new frontiers. But where will these be found?
I have to admit I drew a blank for some time on this question.Then one day the answer came to me. Why doesn't Starbucks offer Generation-X Coffee Tours designed for those who wish to lift their coffee cups where no one has gone before. This could be a whole new business opportunity for Starbucks and we could look foward to seeing signs for the Starbucks Travel Agency on every street corner.
I love that idea. I can see endless possibilities. It can't fail among the adrenaline group who love to outrun avalanches. So in the spirit of adventure, I’d like to be among the first to offer some suggestions for the first tours that might attract these intrepid coffee drinkers:
Seven days in Tibet: Learn about the contribution of yak milk to the global economy. Thrill to your hands-on lessons in milking this wonderful animal. Then taste the richness of yak milk in your coffee as you travel to neighboring Nepal to celebrate the opening of the first Starbucks in that country.
Explore the Euphrates: Fly by helicopter to visit one of the world’s oldest civilizations, the cradle of coffee brewing. You and your party will have lunch in the shadow of one of the largest oil wells in the area and receive an expert briefing on dousing oil well fires. Your tour will include useful hints in avoiding roadside bombs and how to dive into a trench without spilling your coffee.
Conquering the Mountains of Afghanistan: Experience the challenge of scaling untamed mountains and meet friendly local tribesmen who will gladly sell you their local product, a perfect gift for that special someone back home. You will stay in a native hut and sip coffee while you participate in group discussions about the impact of the DaVinci Code on Muslim culture. As an added bonus, you can win a year’s supply of coffee beans if you spot insurgents and call in an air strike.
I have to confess that I am not young enough to experience these wonderful opportunities, so my motives are pure. I just want to see coffee enrich our lives even further. And I know that anyone who can order a venti, half decaf, six shot, sugar free vanilla syrup, half skim, no whip, no foam, extra hot latte in one breath will certainly be in shape for the adventure.
Yak milk anyone?
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Phasing in the Holidays
One of the things that come with age (make that experience) is the realization that celebrating the holidays comes in phases.
Phase one started in the early years of my marriage. I call it the phase of neurotic perfectionism. I thought hosting Thanksgiving gave me the chance to be taken seriously: “By golly, I’m grown up. See, I’m hosting Thanksgiving.” My table had little paper turkeys with fluted paper tails. My salad was jelled into a circle with fruit shapes formed out of the white, sour cream topping. My candles were a subtle shade of pumpkin. Dessert was chocolate cups filled with mousse. In other words, I fussed for days. It never turned out quite as I expected though. In an Italian family with long memories, someone would drag out some past injustice, one of the babies would mash potatoes into the tablecloth, and the dog would throw up loudly and usually right under the table.
By the time I had my own family, phase two began. I call this the game of dodge and weave. People grew wary around August. “Who’s doing Thanksgiving this year?” No one was in a rush to volunteer. We all had families and jobs and while there was no question we would get together, who was going to do it was another matter. Excuses were offered. Suggestions were made. Why not have it at a restaurant? The matriarch of the family opposed that on the grounds that she’d done it for so many years, surely one of us could do it for her. Guilt was ladled on like curdled cream. Finally, offers were cautiously made. Someone would do the turkey if someone else would do whatever. The menu was built by committee. This went on for many years while the children grew up.
Then came phase three, what I call minimalism. By then the kids had all left for college or moved away to new lives. Families became reduced to two people with the occasional visit. For a time the family still potlucked the dinner, but the clean-up was what did it in. No one wanted to take that on. The family contented itself thereafter with phone calls. My husband and I never resorted to turkey TV dinners, but we got close. Neither of us could eat the rich foods anymore. Between indigestion and cholesterol, our bodies simply didn’t work the same way. At the supermarket, while others eagerly chose their turkeys, we stood comparing the fat and sodium ratings between turkey breast and turkey roll. That choice made, we threw a box of instant mashed potatoes into the cart along with a pre-cut bag of salad greens, non-fat dressing, and reduced fat ice cream. It was all right. We got by.
Bur recently things have changed yet again. It began at the supermarket the other day. “Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,” the checkout clerk burbled at us as we collected our groceries. I felt myself form a slight snarl at her cheeriness. It was all very well for her: she hadn’t walked down the gridlock of the shopping carts that people had thoughtfully left parked in the middle of the aisles or selected from among the picked over veggies in the grocery section. My silent snarl convinced me that I had entered the dread final phase: the “I’m in a rotten mood, so this must be the holiday season” phase.
I’d been told to expect this, but I hadn’t thought I would ever really stop thinking with nostalgia about small children, fluted paper turkeys, and pumpkin candles. Well, I have. And—worse—I realize that it’s not just Thanksgiving. I have an overwhelming urge to send my ceramic pumpkin, harvest placemats, outside icicle lights, and lawn reindeer to the thrift shop. I might as well. I know right now there is no force on earth that will send me up the tree in front to string holiday lights. I shudder at the thought of crowds and tired children and endless tinny carols in the stores. I feel I’ve done my time. I’m impatient. I no longer suffer well. I’m not willing to tramp my tired feet through the stores anymore. I have become the grinch.
This doesn’t mean I won’t do Thanksgiving dinner ever again. We have ten coming for dinner this year. There will not be paper turkeys or pumpkin candles, but there will be the usual overeating and the genuine pleasure of seeing family and friends. Sid will help with the cleanup and the house will smell for days of turkey. Oh the joys of the season. What it does mean, though, is that I am going to have a very stiff brandy and egg nog before I start cooking and probably a glass of wine with my meal. It also means that I will not be at Wal Mart at 5:00 a.m. next day ready to trample people for bargains. Instead, I’ll be dropping stuff off at the Salvation Army.
Phase one started in the early years of my marriage. I call it the phase of neurotic perfectionism. I thought hosting Thanksgiving gave me the chance to be taken seriously: “By golly, I’m grown up. See, I’m hosting Thanksgiving.” My table had little paper turkeys with fluted paper tails. My salad was jelled into a circle with fruit shapes formed out of the white, sour cream topping. My candles were a subtle shade of pumpkin. Dessert was chocolate cups filled with mousse. In other words, I fussed for days. It never turned out quite as I expected though. In an Italian family with long memories, someone would drag out some past injustice, one of the babies would mash potatoes into the tablecloth, and the dog would throw up loudly and usually right under the table.
By the time I had my own family, phase two began. I call this the game of dodge and weave. People grew wary around August. “Who’s doing Thanksgiving this year?” No one was in a rush to volunteer. We all had families and jobs and while there was no question we would get together, who was going to do it was another matter. Excuses were offered. Suggestions were made. Why not have it at a restaurant? The matriarch of the family opposed that on the grounds that she’d done it for so many years, surely one of us could do it for her. Guilt was ladled on like curdled cream. Finally, offers were cautiously made. Someone would do the turkey if someone else would do whatever. The menu was built by committee. This went on for many years while the children grew up.
Then came phase three, what I call minimalism. By then the kids had all left for college or moved away to new lives. Families became reduced to two people with the occasional visit. For a time the family still potlucked the dinner, but the clean-up was what did it in. No one wanted to take that on. The family contented itself thereafter with phone calls. My husband and I never resorted to turkey TV dinners, but we got close. Neither of us could eat the rich foods anymore. Between indigestion and cholesterol, our bodies simply didn’t work the same way. At the supermarket, while others eagerly chose their turkeys, we stood comparing the fat and sodium ratings between turkey breast and turkey roll. That choice made, we threw a box of instant mashed potatoes into the cart along with a pre-cut bag of salad greens, non-fat dressing, and reduced fat ice cream. It was all right. We got by.
Bur recently things have changed yet again. It began at the supermarket the other day. “Have a wonderful Thanksgiving,” the checkout clerk burbled at us as we collected our groceries. I felt myself form a slight snarl at her cheeriness. It was all very well for her: she hadn’t walked down the gridlock of the shopping carts that people had thoughtfully left parked in the middle of the aisles or selected from among the picked over veggies in the grocery section. My silent snarl convinced me that I had entered the dread final phase: the “I’m in a rotten mood, so this must be the holiday season” phase.
I’d been told to expect this, but I hadn’t thought I would ever really stop thinking with nostalgia about small children, fluted paper turkeys, and pumpkin candles. Well, I have. And—worse—I realize that it’s not just Thanksgiving. I have an overwhelming urge to send my ceramic pumpkin, harvest placemats, outside icicle lights, and lawn reindeer to the thrift shop. I might as well. I know right now there is no force on earth that will send me up the tree in front to string holiday lights. I shudder at the thought of crowds and tired children and endless tinny carols in the stores. I feel I’ve done my time. I’m impatient. I no longer suffer well. I’m not willing to tramp my tired feet through the stores anymore. I have become the grinch.
This doesn’t mean I won’t do Thanksgiving dinner ever again. We have ten coming for dinner this year. There will not be paper turkeys or pumpkin candles, but there will be the usual overeating and the genuine pleasure of seeing family and friends. Sid will help with the cleanup and the house will smell for days of turkey. Oh the joys of the season. What it does mean, though, is that I am going to have a very stiff brandy and egg nog before I start cooking and probably a glass of wine with my meal. It also means that I will not be at Wal Mart at 5:00 a.m. next day ready to trample people for bargains. Instead, I’ll be dropping stuff off at the Salvation Army.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
One Avocado Green Freezer
Sid favors the tried and true. As long as something works, he doesn’t see any good reason for getting rid of it. On the one hand, I’m glad about that. It means I’m getting longevity and maybe tenure. On the other, it’s a challenge when something is approaching the end of its natural life but is still gasping along its inefficient way.
Case in point: one avocado colored freezer out in garage.
Sid bought this freezer nearly thirty-five years ago, back when parts were really made of metal and forged in the US. It has been a good friend and Sid has resisted every effort to downsize it, most notably when we combined our two households and moved into the house we live in now. I’d be rich now if I had made him pay a dollar for every time he said the words, “It doesn’t eat much,” when I asked about whether he was bringing something from his house to ours. I should have charged him ten dollars when he used those words about the freezer.
A few weeks ago, there seemed to be some excuse for sending it away when water leaked from the bottom. But it was a false alarm. Sid had inadvertently unplugged it. Once the electricity was reconnected, it started up right away.
This morning, Sid asked me how much it would cost to have the freezer hauled away. It seems he wants to expand his woodworking shop and the freezer stands in the way of progress. I made a few calls and found out the minimum was about $95 with additional charges at the landfill.
“But they could resell it,” he protested. “It’s an antique. It was made by Montgomery Ward and they don’t exist anymore.”
His comments made me think about the TV program Antiques Roadshow. Watching the price tags on that show can make somebody think that anything old has to have value. I treasure the things I inherited from my mother and the very few things I have from my grandmother, but it took only a bit of inquiry to find out that their value was primarily to me. Unless something has happened to make a thing collectible and desirable, it’s not going to appreciate that much. I may be wrong, but I don’t think an avocado green freezer is going to make it.
But as long as I’m on this topic I have to admit that I’m in the same boat with Sid. I have collected things through the years that maybe will have value in another hundred if everyone else breaks or loses theirs. I have two sets of bone china dinnerware (one was my mother’s). Every young woman wanted a set when I got married. I also have a set of
Waterford crystal glasses. So does everyone else. You go round to estate sales, and there they all are. The only appreciation in price is the cost of the new ones.
Seeing my treasures on sale for a few dollars after somebody’s death says to me that when you buy something you should buy it because you love it and not for any possible investment. Same thing with art pieces. Buy them for the joy they will bring on your walls, not for the possibility they might one day command a fortune. If they do gain in value, it’s gravy.
Back to the freezer. As Sid says, it owes him nothing. He paid a couple of hundred dollars for it and it’s served him well. He now faces the possibility of paying almost as much to get rid of it. It sounds like appliance divorce. He doesn’t know it yet, but after resenting the freezer for so long, I’ve grown rather attached to it myself. There’s something comforting about knowing it’s out there, its old heart still ticking away. So when he comes back this afternoon, I plan on telling him I think we should keep it. I’ll get rid of some of my junk in the garage so he can expand. “After all,” I will tell him, “it doesn’t eat much.”
Case in point: one avocado colored freezer out in garage.
Sid bought this freezer nearly thirty-five years ago, back when parts were really made of metal and forged in the US. It has been a good friend and Sid has resisted every effort to downsize it, most notably when we combined our two households and moved into the house we live in now. I’d be rich now if I had made him pay a dollar for every time he said the words, “It doesn’t eat much,” when I asked about whether he was bringing something from his house to ours. I should have charged him ten dollars when he used those words about the freezer.
A few weeks ago, there seemed to be some excuse for sending it away when water leaked from the bottom. But it was a false alarm. Sid had inadvertently unplugged it. Once the electricity was reconnected, it started up right away.
This morning, Sid asked me how much it would cost to have the freezer hauled away. It seems he wants to expand his woodworking shop and the freezer stands in the way of progress. I made a few calls and found out the minimum was about $95 with additional charges at the landfill.
“But they could resell it,” he protested. “It’s an antique. It was made by Montgomery Ward and they don’t exist anymore.”
His comments made me think about the TV program Antiques Roadshow. Watching the price tags on that show can make somebody think that anything old has to have value. I treasure the things I inherited from my mother and the very few things I have from my grandmother, but it took only a bit of inquiry to find out that their value was primarily to me. Unless something has happened to make a thing collectible and desirable, it’s not going to appreciate that much. I may be wrong, but I don’t think an avocado green freezer is going to make it.
But as long as I’m on this topic I have to admit that I’m in the same boat with Sid. I have collected things through the years that maybe will have value in another hundred if everyone else breaks or loses theirs. I have two sets of bone china dinnerware (one was my mother’s). Every young woman wanted a set when I got married. I also have a set of
Waterford crystal glasses. So does everyone else. You go round to estate sales, and there they all are. The only appreciation in price is the cost of the new ones.
Seeing my treasures on sale for a few dollars after somebody’s death says to me that when you buy something you should buy it because you love it and not for any possible investment. Same thing with art pieces. Buy them for the joy they will bring on your walls, not for the possibility they might one day command a fortune. If they do gain in value, it’s gravy.
Back to the freezer. As Sid says, it owes him nothing. He paid a couple of hundred dollars for it and it’s served him well. He now faces the possibility of paying almost as much to get rid of it. It sounds like appliance divorce. He doesn’t know it yet, but after resenting the freezer for so long, I’ve grown rather attached to it myself. There’s something comforting about knowing it’s out there, its old heart still ticking away. So when he comes back this afternoon, I plan on telling him I think we should keep it. I’ll get rid of some of my junk in the garage so he can expand. “After all,” I will tell him, “it doesn’t eat much.”
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Exploding Ducks: A Recipe for Life
Thanksgiving brings back memories of culinary disasters. I can’t help it. Other people remember warm family gatherings full of laughter. Ours are usually that way too except that a lot of the laughter comes from what people remember me doing.
Like the time I left the shells on the shrimp and cooked them in a sweet and sour sauce. Or when I left the giblets in the turkey and we had to pull the paper out of the stuffing. Or the time I made pastry shells that were so thick and overworked that they became like Brighton rock (for those not British, these are boiled candy sticks so hard you can break your teeth on them). Or the first time I cooked a duck and managed to explode it. Grease poured out of the oven and on to the floor. Thick, gray smoke filled the kitchen, and the smell of duck grease got into everything, including the drapes and our clothes.
But embarrassing as these were, the greatest mischief in my culinary life happened when we moved from sea level in Hawaii to the mile high city of Denver. Nobody told me that I couldn’t continue to use my cherished recipe book put out by the Honolulu Advertiser. It’s called “My Favorite Recipe” and includes the best of entries in a cooking competition. I loved the buttered shrimp recipe, and the meat loaf with clams was a couldn’t miss for me. At least until I moved to Colorado.
What I didn’t know was that many sea level recipes won’t work here in the mountains. Among other things, altitude lowers the boiling point of water (try cooking beans) and reduces atmospheric pressure (think soufflés that erupt like volcanoes). Everything has to cook longer because the water doesn’t get as hot, but there are no hard and fast rules for how much. Potatoes break apart and get starchy. Unless you’re careful, pie crusts burn before the contents are cooked. And add onto all this the fact that Denver is cracked-heels dry. Invariably more water has to be added to recipes. Whole books have been written locally on what is called “cooking at altitude,” with conversion tables to make recipes, particularly bread and cakes, work up here. Even then things can be tricky.
Into this, insert me, basically unaware of what dangers lurk in my kitchen and faced with my first thanksgiving “at altitude.”
Well, my turkey had to cook so long the drumsticks fell off the rest of the carcass. My stuffing had a thick toasted crust on it. I was rushed and tried to mash the potatoes in the food processor. The result was something like the consistency of liquid cement. My peas were hard. And I was in tears. The only things that were all right were the pumpkin pie, the rolls, and the cranberry jelly, because they were bought.
“That’s OK, hon,” my husband said as he picked out the edible bits of the turkey carcass and threw the hard bits out for the fox, “We aren’t going to starve.” And we didn’t.
Since then I’ve concluded that cooking’s a lot like life. We take it for granted until something happens to make us aware of it. Some people live life by the cookbook. They wouldn’t have exploded a duck because they would have read up on it and maybe bought duck insurance. Others would have exploded the duck anyway because they hate reading cookbooks and want to do it their own way. Yet others—like me, I guess—learn by trial and error. I read the directions for the duck but they didn’t register until I was cleaning up grease. “Oh that’s what they meant,” I remember thinking.
Now I’m older and can get some perspective, I think that’s maybe how I’ve always lived my life. I wish I could have seen up front what I can see so clearly looking back. I envy the people who have recipes for their lives that actually work. My life at times has resembled that exploded duck.
Well, this year Sid’s family is coming over and we are going to brine the turkey. It will turn out fine because Sid likes to focus. I doubt very much that he’ll let us get to where he has to comfort me about some new culinary disaster. But even as our turkey comes out golden brown and juicy, I’ll be thinking about that untidy, exploded duck and the laughter it has produced whenever I tell the story.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Like the time I left the shells on the shrimp and cooked them in a sweet and sour sauce. Or when I left the giblets in the turkey and we had to pull the paper out of the stuffing. Or the time I made pastry shells that were so thick and overworked that they became like Brighton rock (for those not British, these are boiled candy sticks so hard you can break your teeth on them). Or the first time I cooked a duck and managed to explode it. Grease poured out of the oven and on to the floor. Thick, gray smoke filled the kitchen, and the smell of duck grease got into everything, including the drapes and our clothes.
But embarrassing as these were, the greatest mischief in my culinary life happened when we moved from sea level in Hawaii to the mile high city of Denver. Nobody told me that I couldn’t continue to use my cherished recipe book put out by the Honolulu Advertiser. It’s called “My Favorite Recipe” and includes the best of entries in a cooking competition. I loved the buttered shrimp recipe, and the meat loaf with clams was a couldn’t miss for me. At least until I moved to Colorado.
What I didn’t know was that many sea level recipes won’t work here in the mountains. Among other things, altitude lowers the boiling point of water (try cooking beans) and reduces atmospheric pressure (think soufflés that erupt like volcanoes). Everything has to cook longer because the water doesn’t get as hot, but there are no hard and fast rules for how much. Potatoes break apart and get starchy. Unless you’re careful, pie crusts burn before the contents are cooked. And add onto all this the fact that Denver is cracked-heels dry. Invariably more water has to be added to recipes. Whole books have been written locally on what is called “cooking at altitude,” with conversion tables to make recipes, particularly bread and cakes, work up here. Even then things can be tricky.
Into this, insert me, basically unaware of what dangers lurk in my kitchen and faced with my first thanksgiving “at altitude.”
Well, my turkey had to cook so long the drumsticks fell off the rest of the carcass. My stuffing had a thick toasted crust on it. I was rushed and tried to mash the potatoes in the food processor. The result was something like the consistency of liquid cement. My peas were hard. And I was in tears. The only things that were all right were the pumpkin pie, the rolls, and the cranberry jelly, because they were bought.
“That’s OK, hon,” my husband said as he picked out the edible bits of the turkey carcass and threw the hard bits out for the fox, “We aren’t going to starve.” And we didn’t.
Since then I’ve concluded that cooking’s a lot like life. We take it for granted until something happens to make us aware of it. Some people live life by the cookbook. They wouldn’t have exploded a duck because they would have read up on it and maybe bought duck insurance. Others would have exploded the duck anyway because they hate reading cookbooks and want to do it their own way. Yet others—like me, I guess—learn by trial and error. I read the directions for the duck but they didn’t register until I was cleaning up grease. “Oh that’s what they meant,” I remember thinking.
Now I’m older and can get some perspective, I think that’s maybe how I’ve always lived my life. I wish I could have seen up front what I can see so clearly looking back. I envy the people who have recipes for their lives that actually work. My life at times has resembled that exploded duck.
Well, this year Sid’s family is coming over and we are going to brine the turkey. It will turn out fine because Sid likes to focus. I doubt very much that he’ll let us get to where he has to comfort me about some new culinary disaster. But even as our turkey comes out golden brown and juicy, I’ll be thinking about that untidy, exploded duck and the laughter it has produced whenever I tell the story.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Fly America: My Life as a Terrorist
It doesn’t take much these days to realize that our government considers us all wannabe terrorists. In their eyes, we are one indiscriminate mass of potential damage to the nation. You can be a baby in arms, have made your hundredth birthday, or be massively disabled: you will go through the sheep dip at the airport. There’s a reason why they call the passenger area beyond security the “sterile” area. We probably all are or will be after the scanning.
All this suspicion takes its toll on people. Take Sid, for example. He finds it demeaning.
About ten years ago, Sid broke his hip back-country skiing. He was found by some other skiers, hopping down the mountain using his cross-country skis as crutches. He drove himself to the hospital with one good leg. (And they say there are no more mountain men). He now has a metal replacement hip and a permanent problem with airport security. He claims that he could go through the system naked and he would still set it off (I may have to disown him if he tries this). He is offended when he is isolated in a glass cubicle waiting to be wanded, groped, and patted down. He now refuses to fly unless the only alternative is swimming.
I don’t usually set anything off, but I managed to land on a watch list at the Rapid City airport in South Dakota. At the time I was working with a project based at the South Dakota School of Mines that required several trips to South Dakota. On one visit, I mislaid the paper with the details of my return flight. I phoned the airline, gave my identification, and asked if they could confirm the time of my Denver flight. Apparently that did it.
When I went to the counter to check in, a security guard took me and my luggage to another room where he put my suitcase on a table. He held up his hands and looked at me: “Is there any in here that will make my wife an unhappy woman?” I looked at him blankly until I realized he was talking about the family jewels. I shook my head and then he took everything out of my case. Only after that was I allowed to get a boarding pass.
When I got to the gate, the security personnel dropped everything to focus on me, my documents, and my carry-on. “I’m a sixty-year-old woman,” I said plaintively as they looked at my pens and hair brush. “I’m not a threat to national security.” They were not amused. I had the uneasy feeling that they might want to strip search me and I might not get on the plane. I did get home that night, but it wasn’t over. The next time I flew to Rapid City, it all happened again. That’s when I knew that the Rapid City airport will always be on high alert whenever I travel through it.
Most people deal with this scrutiny with resignation, obediently offering up their belongings and clothing in the name of security—hoping that while they tell you off for not putting your toothpaste in a plastic bag they are actually catching the more dangerous things. Younger folk don’t seem to be so upset by it. Maybe it’s just that they are more used to the current world. Their high school probably resembled some Texas mega church and they’ve had plenty of practice walking through metal detectors. For them, the lines must simply be the way things are in a crowded, dangerous world.
To me they are a nuisance, an obstacle to where I want to go that I will overcome (as long as I don’t get too cranky in Phoenix and get shot). Sid, on the other hand, feels completely trapped. And he’s right. It’s a matter of pride. Older folk remember a more genteel time when boarding an aircraft was not a cattle call. They also see through the pretence of it all. Everyone goes through the sheep dip because the government pretends not to profile. We all know they do. My Hispanic daughter-in-law could pass for Near Eastern. Never mind that her family comes from the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado and has been there for longer than the US has been a nation--she has never gone through a security line without getting the South Dakota treatment. The irony is that for all this inconvenience, tests tell us that they still aren’t finding potentially hazardous things in luggage.
So where does that leave us? Sid will only drive or sail. I will continue to fly because I have to. When you have family in Australia and England, there’s no choice. I wonder sometimes if it’s time to bring back the glory days of trains and liners. But then, I suppose they would start massive security procedures for them as well. That’s because we’re all potential terrorists, don’t you know?
All this suspicion takes its toll on people. Take Sid, for example. He finds it demeaning.
About ten years ago, Sid broke his hip back-country skiing. He was found by some other skiers, hopping down the mountain using his cross-country skis as crutches. He drove himself to the hospital with one good leg. (And they say there are no more mountain men). He now has a metal replacement hip and a permanent problem with airport security. He claims that he could go through the system naked and he would still set it off (I may have to disown him if he tries this). He is offended when he is isolated in a glass cubicle waiting to be wanded, groped, and patted down. He now refuses to fly unless the only alternative is swimming.
I don’t usually set anything off, but I managed to land on a watch list at the Rapid City airport in South Dakota. At the time I was working with a project based at the South Dakota School of Mines that required several trips to South Dakota. On one visit, I mislaid the paper with the details of my return flight. I phoned the airline, gave my identification, and asked if they could confirm the time of my Denver flight. Apparently that did it.
When I went to the counter to check in, a security guard took me and my luggage to another room where he put my suitcase on a table. He held up his hands and looked at me: “Is there any in here that will make my wife an unhappy woman?” I looked at him blankly until I realized he was talking about the family jewels. I shook my head and then he took everything out of my case. Only after that was I allowed to get a boarding pass.
When I got to the gate, the security personnel dropped everything to focus on me, my documents, and my carry-on. “I’m a sixty-year-old woman,” I said plaintively as they looked at my pens and hair brush. “I’m not a threat to national security.” They were not amused. I had the uneasy feeling that they might want to strip search me and I might not get on the plane. I did get home that night, but it wasn’t over. The next time I flew to Rapid City, it all happened again. That’s when I knew that the Rapid City airport will always be on high alert whenever I travel through it.
Most people deal with this scrutiny with resignation, obediently offering up their belongings and clothing in the name of security—hoping that while they tell you off for not putting your toothpaste in a plastic bag they are actually catching the more dangerous things. Younger folk don’t seem to be so upset by it. Maybe it’s just that they are more used to the current world. Their high school probably resembled some Texas mega church and they’ve had plenty of practice walking through metal detectors. For them, the lines must simply be the way things are in a crowded, dangerous world.
To me they are a nuisance, an obstacle to where I want to go that I will overcome (as long as I don’t get too cranky in Phoenix and get shot). Sid, on the other hand, feels completely trapped. And he’s right. It’s a matter of pride. Older folk remember a more genteel time when boarding an aircraft was not a cattle call. They also see through the pretence of it all. Everyone goes through the sheep dip because the government pretends not to profile. We all know they do. My Hispanic daughter-in-law could pass for Near Eastern. Never mind that her family comes from the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado and has been there for longer than the US has been a nation--she has never gone through a security line without getting the South Dakota treatment. The irony is that for all this inconvenience, tests tell us that they still aren’t finding potentially hazardous things in luggage.
So where does that leave us? Sid will only drive or sail. I will continue to fly because I have to. When you have family in Australia and England, there’s no choice. I wonder sometimes if it’s time to bring back the glory days of trains and liners. But then, I suppose they would start massive security procedures for them as well. That’s because we’re all potential terrorists, don’t you know?
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