Scott Simon Muses on Air Travel

National Public Radio’s Scott Simon, host of Saturday Morning Edition and himself a baby boomer, recently amused us with a timely essay on air travel. He has given us his permission to share with the gang at BoomerCafé …

The Transportation and Safety Administration, which is often assailed for wasting resources by checking infants in strollers and grandmothers with walkers, faced criticism this week for trying to focus its efforts by keeping a list that apparently assigns some kind of Threat Assessment Level to each passenger.

By now, probably every flier has a favorite story of what looked like an absurdity: a toddler who was made to take off his tiny rubber shoes and get wanded; an elderly war veteran who had to remove his plastic leg.

The wife of Senate Commerce Committe Ted Stevens, Catherine, was questioned at an airport because her name is the same as singer Yusef Islam, who used to be known as Cat Stevens.

But you ought to hear Mrs. Stevens sing, “Moonshadow.”

There are also complaints that many lists do not contain the names of more plausible terrorists–because investigative agencies don’t want to tip off people that they’re being scrutinized.

The alarm over each flier being assigned some Threat Assessment level is that inaccurate or misleading information could lay around for years in some data base. Could an employer refuse to hire someone because they had a high Threat Assessment number? Could a bank turn them down for a loan? Will young couples in coffee bars ask, “What’s your Threat Assessment Level,” instead of “What’s your sign?”

A lot of us who fly may have our own lists of people we’d like to leave at the departure gate:

As someday it may happen that a Watch List must be made

I’ve got a little list! I’ve got a little list!

of irritating passengers I’d choose to barricade

And who never would be missed! Who never would be missed!

There’s the fellow with a backpack

that’s the size of Zanzibar

He slings it o’er his shoulder and

leaves your nose all scarred

All people who just want to chat

when you just need to sleep

who tell smutty jokes about acrobats

rabbis, nuns, and sheep

And those who eat burritos

just before they board

they think they are discreet-o

but burp like harpsichords

There’s the man with travel luggage

he dragged through yellow snow

who puts his grimy wheels on your coat

and crushes your hat like a bus rolling over a banjo

All people who shout into Airphones

“I’m calling from the plane!”

What was so damn important?

They never do explain.

And pilots who must point out–

“Uh, folks. Flying over Toledo now,”

as if beholding the Taj Mahal

Each access road and shopping mall

holds them in a thrall.

There’s the man who has six martinis

and crawls on the drink trolley

Then sings drinking songs from Rawalpindi

all the way to Bali.

But it really doesn’t matter whom

you put upon the list.

They’d none of them be missed.

I’m sure they’d not be missed.

[The editors of BoomerCafé invite you to visit Scott Simon's Web site.]

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