So this is where we are now. As Americans travel to join their families, they can be grateful that, unlike holiday turkeys, they will not undergo “cavity searches,” although other body parts may be subject to close scrutiny.
In our sophisticated time, cliches about family stress and dissension have replaced those Norman Rockwell rosy images of holiday reunions, but now just getting to them can be nerve-wracking as stepped-up airport procedures to prevent terrorism are provoking public debate.
Is any part of American life now not being held hostage to post-9/11 fear? This may not come under the heading of reassurance, but an octogenarian editor can recall the first in-flight bombing just before Thanksgiving 55 years ago that killed 44 Americans over Colorado.
The bomber was not a foreign terrorist but a 23-year-old local sociopath who had bought life insurance at the airport for his mother as she left to spend the holidays with other family members. He had helped her pack for the trip, neatly stowing 25 sticks of dynamite in the suitcase.
No airport security measures followed. In those days, Americans shrugged at such tragedies, executed the culprit and treated them as isolated acts of nature.
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