BY JOELLEN COLLINS
Many of us are abandoning our love of travel in the new era of rigid security, fear of terrorist activity and the spending of too much money and time associated with flying. However, I still enjoy boarding an airplane to be with people and places I love. Here’s a happy tale.
A week before Thanksgiving and right after an uplifting phone call from a friend, I arrived at Friedman airport with a carry-on full of reading material and The New York Times’ Sunday crossword puzzle, which fills up time without the ensuing guilt I might feel at perusing a deliciously cheesy celebrity magazine. Even so, I experience some angst with travel. Might I accidentally drop my driver’s license while heading toward the TSA or even find it had expired two days before I was to pick up my car rental, as happened once in Seattle?
Upon arrival in Salt Lake, I appreciated the good fortune of sunny skies and the ease of being in comfortable new planes. Then an amazing thing happened. While I was choosing some Reese’s’ to soothe mid-afternoon cravings, a young man asked if I would help him decide which kitchen magnet he should take home to his mother, which I did. As he was leaving the store, he handed me a magnet like the one he’d purchased. I was moved by this act of generosity, a reward for something we do for each other anyway. I will proudly display the trinket next to my grandchildren’s photos on my refrigerator.
On the next leg of my trip I experienced the same sweet reminder of the good people around us. I sat across from a young couple with their baby boy. He was adorable and happy, and when I commented on that, his father said, “Wait until later in the flight! You might change your mind.” I said I doubted that, and relaxed into my belief that all of us who travel learn to adjust to noises like crying children. If bothered, wear earplugs! Baby Leo never did cry, and his father and I occasionally chitchatted, making the journey pleasant.
After baggage retrieval I felt lost on the way to the AirTrain going to the exit for BART, which would then deposit me at the Embarcadero in San Francisco. On the way, fortunately, I encountered the New York family, and together we trekked through the maze of tunnels, elevators and a parking lot. Alongside us and then next to me on BART was a vivacious woman, a scientist going to UC Berkeley to present the results of her research about the human brain at a conference there. What a treat and a fitting way to end a day that could have been fraught with a lack of civility, frustration, disappointment and exhaustion. Instead, I emerged from the escalator up to Market Street with a smile, not only for my loving family awaiting me, but also for the timely reminder of my hope for positive connections between people.
