Time Traveler

For many years, I traveled regularly for my job.  It was not unusual to be on the road three or four days in a week.  Ironically, one of the factors that dissuaded me from pursuing a career as a pianist is that I couldn’t envision myself living in hotel rooms out of a suitcase.  While still in high school I became acquainted with a rising star who had just won a prestigious national piano competition.  On his victory tour, I had the chance to visit with him when he performed in my home town.  Here he was, at the peak of his fame—hailed as the next great American pianist—and he was already bemoaning the travel.  He complained that the hotel food sucked and that his socks were musty.  So much for the glamorous life of a star.

I have thought of this man often over the years as I donned my business suit and medium-heeled pumps and headed for the airport.   Whereas I feared travel in the career I didn’t pursue, I never minded it in the one in which I landed.  My work was a mission, a calling, a quest; the travel was merely a means to an end.  I attained Delta “Million Miler” status in just eight years.

The key to travel in those days was good planning.  After a few tries, it was possible to streamline your necessities to the point where you never really unpacked.  Two dark suit--one grey and one navy--meant that you could travel in one while the other was at the cleaners.  Silk T-shirts, in a variety of colors, gave you a new outfit for each day, especially with a few well-chosen, easy-to-pack accessories.  My one spatial splurge was my hair dryer—a clunky necessity for one born with terminally frizzy hair.  I even debunked the airport, claiming for myself a convenient parking spot as if it were an endowed chair.

Technology, however, was a big problem in those days.   There were no laptops or internet connections.  We carried “portable” computers, modems, and a bulky screen projector.  You could not rely on the client’s having up-to-date or compatible equipment onsite.  We lived in constant fear that the magnetic media would become erased or corrupted.  I would carry extra program and data disks in my bag and sometimes mail myself a copy at my destination.

Thank goodness, technology has come a long way.  I am writing this now on an airplane with a slim laptop that not only connects wirelessly to the universe, but also slips into my purse.  The power to access a portfolio of applications on demand and on a convenient portable platform is ubiquitous.  My college-age children now carry more computing power on their phones than we carried around in large cases when they were just infants.  And because this level of technology is more or less standard now, we can bank on having connectivity and compatibility at nearly every destination.

Instead of the business traveler’s reaping the rewards of these technologies, enabling a more pleasant and streamlined experience for the economic road warrior, our lifestyle gain was negated by the terrorist threat.  Our shortcuts have been undone. The duplicate toiletries I kept pre-packed have been replaced by small 1.7 ounce bottles that last only a few days if they don’t leak.  The time savings I was able to engineer out of the pre-airport song and dance has been replaced by a lengthy and invasive security screening process.  My go-to parking spot vanished, having been ruled too close to the airport for comfort.  The airplane meals are gone completely. Although terrible at best, they once provided enough sustenance to permit a tight connection between a client meeting and a late flight home without needing to stop for a meal.

Does anyone still remember the good old days, when travel used to be a bit of an extravagance?  Putting on your travel clothes meant dressing in a smart outfit, not baggy sweats and Uggs.  We would spend days planning the wardrobe, counting out each day’s clothes and folding them neatly until they appeared almost new.  If we were lucky, we would require new clothes for a trip, as our everyday wear would be deemed too ratty and inappropriate for something as special as travel.

Today when I travel I get a distinctly different blast from the past.  We are herded, much like livestock, into long lines to await individual scrutiny of our papers.  We arrive at a station where we remove our shoes, our valuables, and much of our clothing.  We are searched.  Our belongings are inspected, some chosen at random for closer examination.  We are sized up, some of us sent one way while others are singled out for their specific physical attributes.  We wait in a holding area until we are packed, unable to move, into a small space for transport.

Fortunately, many are discovering that technology helps them travel far less frequently.  This is a good thing, because while technology is striving to make our lives better, human beings just can’t help but mess things up.

And now for something completely different, tomorrow's blog:  So Shallow Network