Flying just isn't fun anymore

Local columnist

link Grant McGee

Flying seems to be part of the holiday season for many.

Not for The Lady of the House and me.

Oh, it’s not that we’re afraid of flying, but we have our reasons why.

For The Lady of the House it’s about an incident that happened many years ago when she was headed back from a trip to “Jolly Olde England.”

What was supposed to be a simple hop from Florida to Amarillo turned into a 10-hour ordeal involving “planes, trains and automobiles.”

She vowed to never fly again. Mountains of peanut packs and unlimited iced soft drinks could not change her mind.

For me, flying just isn’t fun anymore.

It’s not about the long security lines or the frequently canceled flights.

Once upon a time in America, flying was an adventure.

If you were a kid you’d get invited up to the cockpit and the pilot would give you a little talk about flying. Then they’d give you a gold wings pin with “JUNIOR PILOT” etched on it. I still have mine.

And once upon a time in America, the pilot would occasionally tell you what part of the country you were flying over. They seem to have stopped doing that, too. The last time I flew I took a road atlas with me to try to figure out where I was.

I turned to a flight attendant with my finger on my atlas and asked, “Are we flying over east Texas now?”

She just smiled at me as if to say, “Why are you asking me this? I just work here.”

Yep, gone is that excitement I felt as a kid every time our family got on a jet. I’d look out the window as we rumbled down the runway and, zoom, we’d be in the air. What a feeling.

Besides, I’m pretty sure that by the time I’ve gone through all the rigmarole of flying nowadays I could’ve driven to where I’m going.

Well, it seems that way anyway.

Grant McGee is a long-time broadcaster and former truck driver who rides bicycles and likes to talk about his many adventures on the road of life. Contact him at his blog: grantmcgeewrites.com