Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

There are two types of people living the Greater Toronto Area.

There are those of us who know someone who is using March break to escape the local winter conditions by travelling somewhere south where it's nice and warm. And then there are those who have actually done the travelling, and are busy rooting around for the sunscreen, while the other group freezes in the north and reads this rubbish I'm writing.

Obviously, I'm in the first group, and as sick and tired as I am with all the snow, I can only feel a limited amount of envy for these people who have traveled.

I listened to enough radio newscasts Friday to get a clear idea of what conditions were like at Pearson International, as thousands and thousands of people tried to get out. That is the type of mob scene I could absolutely live without.

That's not to say I have a problem with air travel. I just have trouble dealing with airports.

The last time I flew was in August 2000. My wife and I were at Pearson, waiting to board a plane for St. John, New Brunswick. We were heading east for Beth's brother's wedding.

I was enough of a flying veteran to know the advantage of getting to the airport early, so we were at Pearson, bags in hand, with a couple of hours to spare. We were shown into one of the longest line-ups I have ever been part of by a person whose clothing indicated employment with Air Canada (the airline with which we were slated to fly).

Now I hate standing in long line-ups, largely because it's basically wasted time, and progress in such situations tends to be slow. I was trying, with some success, to restrain my natural revulsion of the situation, telling myself we had left ourselves lots of time and things should be OK.

Things got interesting when another employee of Canada's national carrier came trotting down the line with a slight look of alarm on his face.

"Anybody here flying to St. John's?" he called out.

I pride myself on having a decent understanding of Canadian geography, so I do know there is a difference between the city in New Brunswick Beth and I were trying to get to and the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. My cautious nature told me I had better talk with this fellow and make sure I was clear on which destination he was talking about.

I clearly told this gent we were planning to fly to New Brunswick.

"You're going to St. John's?" he said, with some urgency in his voice.

"Yeah," I replied. "St. John, New Brunswick."

"You're too far back in the line," he admonished me. "You're not going to make it. Come with me."

Beth and I quickly grabbed our stuff and followed this fellow.

No matter how much I hate standing in line, I am usually loathed to jump any queue. However, this was an exception, if for no other reason than I was ordered to do the jumping.

The benefit of this exercise was we got to the front of the line in record time. The woman behind the counter noted our abrupt arrival, and asked for our ticket documentation.

After studying our paperwork, she astutely observed that we were not flying to Newfoundland. I assured her I was fully aware of that fact, and she replied by wondering why we had jumped ahead in line, since our flight wasn't going to be called for at least another hour.

The guy who had yanked us out of line was standing nearby, so I pointed to him, telling the lady he had urgently told us to make haste. She responded by telling me I should have made my destination clear to him.

"I did," I said. She replied with a grimace, then passed us through and warned us to keep a low profile, since a lot of people still in line would be angry that we were moved ahead.

And this was all before 9-11. I've not been to the airport since, so I have little idea what sort of security measures are in place now.

There was a time when I would be at the airport frequently, like just about every week.

My father, at one point in his career, had been an executive with a multinational corporation. The company doesn't exist any more, at least not as the entity I knew as a kid, but in its day, it had interests in several of the northern United States, as well as much of western Europe, Mexico and Brazil. And in his capacity, he had to travel to most of these places.

He would be abroad for about four weeks at a time, mainly in France, but there were a number of trips to England and Spain, and he made it to Germany, Italy and Portugal a couple of times. At the end of the four weeks, he would come home, but there would still be weekly trips to the company's operation in Detroit. That would mean catching an early flight Thursday morning, and arriving home the Friday evening. That routine would go on for about three weeks, then he would be back to Europe for another four-week stint.

That life took a toll on my dad, and in the longrun, it probably proved a detriment to his health. Losing your luggage often enough will do that to anybody.

But it had certain advantages. He got to see a lot of the world, it helped fuel some passions that stayed with him for the rest of his life, such as for fine wines and oil paintings (one of his prized possessions was a portrait of a clown he bought on the Montmartre in Paris, which hangs on my living room wall today). My mother also got over to Europe twice, and when my brother and I finally got our trip, our sage guide was able to show us spots no tourist brochure would even mention. Another byproduct was got to see a lot of aircraft, at least from the outside (I was 17 before I actually flew in one).

So my mother, brother and I used to spend a lot of Friday evenings hanging around the airport (this was long before Pierre Trudeau had it renamed after his predecessor). These were the days when Viscounts and Vanguards made up most of the planes on the tarmac, with the odd jet to handle the overseas traffic.

But that was also in the days when people didn't travel as much, with my dad being a notable exception; one of the few. The airport was a much more relaxed place than it is now.

Many years later, I took my first major vacation, travelling to Ireland to see the land of my ancestors. My folks drove me to the airport to see me off, and we had the good sense to get there with plenty of time to spare.

"Remember how we used to be out here every week?" Dad asked me as we passed the time.

"Vividly," I assured him.

Then it was his turn to grimace. "I sure don't miss it!" he growled.

I never blamed him.