Things are not always getting better.  Progress is paradoxical – as we advance with technology, we create new problems. My eye doctor told me that he has been fitting more children and teens in bifocals in what feels like epic proportions – this is due to computers, computer games, and incessant texting, among other things.

And while admittedly the good old days are often not the good old days but rather an unequal focus on the good while forgetting the bad, sometimes it is important to reminisce. This is precisely what I did a week ago, on a trip to see of friend of mine in Washington.

 I started reminiscing about what airports used to be like. What I came up with felt like fiction. But young people, this is true! 

For those of you who are too young to remember airports before all of the elaborate security measures and color-coded warnings were put in place, picture this:

•    People dressed in polyester, bell-bottomed leisure suits, calling airplanes “jet planes” and feeling very modern. They were the “jet set” – those future-aged few who could move about quickly across the world.

•    An air of drama and glamour surrounded the entire travel experience.

•    Picture getting dropped off at the airport, but not getting kicked out of the car in the cold somewhere along the curb outside ticketing, alone to contend with your luggage. Instead, you are accompanied. In fact, you are accompanied all the way to the gate! Your girlfriend or boyfriend sits with you until it’s time for you to leave on that jet plane. You’ve been sitting together, gazing out the window and holding hands, looking at planes take off into the sky. Now it’s your turn!

•    You whisper a tearful adieu, embrace, and board the plane. You know that your loved one will linger, to watch out the window as the jet you are on ascends into the vast, blue sky.

[GOODBYES WERE A LOT MORE DRAMATIC BACK THEN]

Now, contrast that with today’s reality.

•    If you are lucky enough to have someone give you a ride to the airport, you get dumped off at the curb.  There is no time for tearful goodbyes, because there are airport officials who will scold you if you linger.

•    You do not have the luxury of being accompanied to the gate, or anywhere near it. Your girlfriend or boyfriend is gone.

•    You have arrived very, very early so you can stand in line to check your baggage, which, by the way, you are charged an extra fee for.  You stand in line again so you can go through security.

•    Invariably, there is a lady ahead of you who has viewed it as necessary to bring along as much clutter as she can possibly carry.

•    You wait for the lady with the clutter, and now it’s your turn. You take off your belt, and feel grateful that your pants are tight enough not to fall around your ankles. You take off your coat and your shoes, and put them into a grey plastic box on a conveyor belt. You take out your laptop and put it in another grey plastic box.

•    You wait for the TSA to signal it is your turn to walk through the big white door-frame looking thing that is the metal detector.  You are very respectful and you do not say anything stupid. You then wait as your stuff in grey plastic boxes gets screened.

•    You could possibly pass all of this, and put your belt, your coat, and your shoes back on, tuck your laptop back in your briefcase, and move along. But the legacy of exploding shoes and other such insanities has left us all with the possibility of many more screening adventures. If you are a suspicious looking person like me, who always gets selected,  you could get wanded, patted down, or made to stand in a big phone-booth style box with your feet spread and your arms over your head while air poofs up at you from the ground. And let’s not forget the latest “We can see you bare-naked” body scanning machine – there’s the risk of that now, too!

Finally, when you’ve put yourself back together, you go to the gate and wait there for a very long time, alone, so you can later cram yourself into 27C or whatever seat you’ve been assigned, and oh! –

•    There’s the lady who deemed it necessary to carry all her earthly belongings on this journey. She’s stuffing it all into the overhead bin now.

•    You wait some more, and then you’re off. After a while, if you’re lucky, you’ll get treated to a microscopic bag of stale pretzels. Gone are the days when people had the luxury of complaining about airline food, because most airlines won’t give you that option unless your destination is Siberia.  HUNGRY?  Eat your pretzels!

Airports these days. They used to be glamorous and emotionally charged, like scenes from Casablanca. NOW? Well…..we’re safe, mostly…

Progress is not always progress.  That’s the paradox. There are young people getting fitted into bifocals after over-using their nifty technology.  And regarding airports, with all of this heightened, tightened security, much of glamour and mystery of travel is gone.

Dr. Debra Payne is the Wandering Editor for Wandering Educators.