Herding and Boxes

Yesterday I flew to Atlanta for a series of meetings. The airport experience was just that, “an experience.” You go from one line to another. At the ticketing counter, one guy whose flight was leaving in 45 minutes was moved by a screener to the front of the ticket line to see an agent. As he reached across to give his identification his arm with a tennis racket accidentally hit a man in the back. The man was being served by another agent.

These things happen. When the man saw this guy who had been moved to the front standing between him and his wife he turned and pushed a man who he saw as a rude interloper. When he pushed this guy, he stumbled and as he tried to regain his balance he hit the wife and knocked her over some luggage and onto her back. The husband thinking that this man had intentionally pushed his wife pushed this guy a second time. A fight was about to take place until three agents shouted.

What complicated the matter is that the agent who had moved the man to the head of the line to a specified agent had moved on. She was the only one who knew why he was there. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and an agent got the matter settled quickly with two policeman standing ten feet away.

From there I through a long security line….I prefer flying out of National because the even with long lines you can get through in about 15 minutes, and from there you are less than 3 minutes to the gates. Having to use the restroom I discovered that one of the two restrooms was closed and again stood in line 10 minutes.

Following that there was the maneuvering through the crowd in the narrow hallway, standing in line 5 minutes to get something to eat, maneuvering though a small store and then standing in line 4 minutes there to purchase a pack of gum, searching to find an empty seat at the gate, and then the line to get onto the plane. When I finally got to my seat in a crowded 60 seat jet I felt like was just being herded around like cattle.

Oh, the joy of flying. Since coming to Washington I have taken more flights than all the prior years. In that same time I have stayed nearly 3 times as many hotel rooms as all the prior years.

Thinking about all this as the plane bumped its way through a thunderstorm, again I felt like a cow in the midst of a herd. Then I recalled the old pictures of railway stations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There were long lines there to ride over crowded rail cars for half days or more. They had crowded hot stuffy stations and long lines to check and claim their baggage, and to purchase their tickets. They had their limited restroom facilities and poor food, if food could even be found in stations or on the trains.

The old sailing and steam ships that traveled the Atlantic were full of people…close quarters for all but the first class passengers, and long lines to get on and off, and long waits to reclaim baggage. They hand their long lines to get through inspections and immigration officials. River steamers were not any better and may have been worse when you noted that many of them also carried shipments of other material including horses and other livestock. Then add the business and in sundry aromas of the livestock to the mix without air conditioning and good ventilation.

Mass travel has always been just that “mass”….taking the masses in small boxes from one place to another. How the boxes are moved from point A to point B may have changed, but in all generations the boxes have been crowded. We just have to tolerate the box and herding process. While I do not enjoy flying and view it as a means to an end, I am now thankful that I only have to be in a box for a few hours compared to days or weeks. I also will be more patient with the herding processes associated with the moving of the boxes and its contents from one point to another.