Done a little bit of scaring the passengers in my time

I guess we’ve gotten used to the changes that happened with airplane flights in this post-9/11 world.

I haven’t been on a plane since June that year. I’m not really inclined to do so anyway, what with all the hassles and list of dos and don’ts in flying.

I first started reconsidering air travel not long after that September day.

I was working at a weekly newspaper in Tombstone, Ariz., and had to put papers in some vending machines in Tucson International Airport.

It was a once-a-week trip, picking up the papers from the Tucson printer and stopping by the airport on the way back to Tombstone.

Because I parked right at the terminal my car had to be inspected. Mr. Policeman would walk up, have me open all my doors, my engine compartment and trunk and do an inspection. He also used a long-handled mirror to look under the car.

Then I’d grab my stacks of papers and mosey inside the terminal.

After a few weekly trips through a metal detector I decided to go into the terminal with no belt, wearing flip-flops, and just had my keys and wallet in my pockets.

No pocket change, no pocketknife, it cut down on the time I spent with the friendly, neighborhood Transportation Safety Administration inspectors.

One day there was no police officer nearby when I pulled up. The cop was all the way at the other end of the terminal.

I waved, I yelled, I whistled for Mr. Policeman. I started doing jumping jacks and yelling, “HEY. HEY! HEEEEEEY!”

Finally, Mr. Policeman came strolling down.

“Sir, do you have a problem? You’re scaring the passengers,” he said looking at me sideways. I’m sure he was thinking of giving me a free ride in a police car to jail.

“I just wanted to get an inspection.”

“Sir, there’s a phone just inside the door to call for an inspection.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

As I walked into the terminal I pondered his words:

“You’re scaring the passengers.”

I wondered what kind of world was forming around me that my fellow countrymen would be afraid of a lanky dude down at the other end of the terminal doing jumping-jacks.

People have been afraid of lesser things I reckon.

Then there was the time I caused a sensation at the George H.W. Bush International Airport in Houston with my 18-wheeler.

There’s a road there that goes to the tractor-trailer loading area at the airport and there’s a road to the main terminal.

They’re side by side.

In the age before GPS thingys I took the wrong road.

I ended up in front of the passenger terminal.

People were staring.

People were pointing.

Then I saw a hand stuck in the air, waving, at me.

The hand belonged to a policeman.

I rolled my window down.

“I’m sorry, sir, I made a wrong turn.” I wanted to be sure to speak first and let the dude know that I knew I messed up.

“No kidding,” said the policeman as he came up to my window.

He didn’t actually say, “No kidding” but that’ll do for a family newspaper.

He spoke softly but firmly, “You’re scaring the passengers. Now just get this thing out of here.”

“Yes sir,” I said and rolled up my window.

Now I could understand people being afraid of an out-of-place 18-wheeler at an airport in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But a guy doing jumping-jacks?

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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