If you have been following my blogs for a while, you have read about some of my unhappy encounters with airport security. If you do not know me personally—and since there almost 500 of you out there who are reading or subscribing to my blog posts– I assume many do not know what I look like. Well, I look like an old man struggling along in my 85thyear. Not only that, due to balance issues, I now use a hiking stick, sometimes two sticks, and years ago we discovered that the best way to get through airport security is by reserving a wheelchair. This is what we did this time when flying on Southwest Airlines from BWI to Portland, Maine, where our daughter and her family live and where we will be attending a blue grass music festival.
All was going well until we were wheeled by an attendant to the first of the line to go through the metal detector screening device. Embry sailed through. No problem. When I emerged from the screening device, I was met by a team of three armed security guards, all men and all looking stressed. One took command and gave me a thorough body search, the same kind that I had a couple of years ago when a group of concerned five- or six-year-old kids asked their parents, “What are they doing to that poor, old man?”
This took several minutes. Embry was laughing again on the sidelines. Fortunately, I had checked my bag but did have a briefcase containing a computer, several books and some miscellaneous items, which fell out when they turned the briefcase upside down and shook it. They carefully examined the computer and the books, and then directed me to take off my shoes. One of the guards took the shoes and returned a few minutes later, scowling. “Okay,” he snarled, “You can go now.”
The frisking procedure took about fifteen minutes as a dozen or so other passengers whizzed past, giving me puzzled looks, then breezing off to their gates.
Embry, still giggling, asked, “Why is your guardian angel asleep at the wheel when we go through airport security?”
What is it about me that causes alarms to go off at airport security? Do I look like a terrorist? But how would they know what a terrorist looks like anyway? When was the last time a plane was hijacked in the United States?
The last time an airplane was hijacked in the U.S. was in 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. And how many flights are there in the U.S. every day? The answer is 44,360 on average. And the number of people employed to screen passengers? The TSA website says that in the U.S. there are approximately 50,000 security officers, who are involved in screening passengers. So in the United States alone every day you have 50,000 people engaged in an effort to keep something from happening that has not happened for over 25 years. And we are just one country! And according to TSA the annual cost in the U.S. is over $11 billion!
Does this make sense? And just think about how boring this job must be! You work hard every day to keep something from happening that does not happen. I am still not sure why an 84-year-old man like me might be considered high risk, but if there is actually zero risk, your job is meaningless.
Such is life on the Planet Earth in 2026. A visitor from outer space would conclude, “Beam me up, Scotty, no intelligent life on this planet!”
Headed off to the Ossipee Blue Grass festival where there will not likely be any WIFI connections but some good stories should follow.
Stay tuned.