Here she is packed and rearing to go back to the tundra of Montana! After two months of being away from home, and her cats, Mom was ready to get back, and there really isn't anything better than your own little bed, and home. I am sure she will miss the weather down here; it was nearly 70 today, and I need to spray winter weeds. I miss her, and hope she will make the trip again next year. I do regret that Maya Angelou got sick and canceled her appearance at UTPB, but Mom was not sorry at all. Everytime I go to the airport I feel like throwing a fit over the condition of our country. Sending someone home is so sterilized, now. You might be able to stand there and watch them take their shoes off, then go through the scanner, then they disappear. I liked it better in the old days when you could follow them to the boarding gate, hug and kiss, and say good-bye. I started flying back in the 60s, because the parents were smart enough to keep me from having a car, and I had to fly back and forth from Lubbock to Billings. I shudder when I think of the first time I flew from Lubbock. I knew nothing, and it didn't help that the speaker system at the Lubbock airport was worse than the speakers at Sonic. I was walking around in that tiny airport, and suddenly realized that garbled message coming over the intercom was my flight! They were about to taxi to the runway, so I went running out on to the tarmac waving my ticket and yelling at them to wait. Luckily the pilot was awake and saw me, so they let the steps down and I climbed aboard (Roberto, you would have been proud of me). When I moved off campus to go to grad school, my Dad gave me a .38 to put under my pillow, and of course, I tucked it neatly in my purse when I flew back and forth. Well, don't worry about grad students packing heat on the plane nowdays. No siree! Today, you are totally safe in a plane, unless there is a terrorist aboard who has a bomb in a private place! My goodness, haven't we come a long way.
