What would happen if someone were to call a major airport and say, “I have an exploding suitcase”?
    If someone were to make that call, immediately, the Transportation Security Administration would find ways to ban all luggage from flights.
    And even though we read about how the TSA had begun to ease up on some of the draconian measures for screening passengers, apparently word hadn’t really gotten around.

    Not long ago, passengers needed to remove their shoes only when they feared their delayed flight would force them to sleep on a terminal bench. One person tried to sneak on board with a bomb hidden in his shoe, and as a result, we’d all better allow an extra half hour for processing.
    These are some of our experiences during a recent overseas trip:
    We checked our luggage in Albuquerque, routing it to Atlanta and from there to Copenhagen. We didn’t see the luggage again until touching down in Denmark. The Albuquerque screening was thorough, and for the first time I didn’t get singled out.
    On landing back in Atlanta two weeks later, we joined a cattle roundup. Really now, a few well-placed signs explaining what we aspiring terrorists need to do would be preferable to having several dozen attendants shouting out niceties such as, “You can’t go there,” “Put your luggage down,” “I don’t need to see your passport, but now that you’ve produced it, it doesn’t look a thing like you,” “What was your business in Copenhagen?” and “Did you get to see the Little Mermaid?”
    Most of us international travelers didn’t realize that the security check we’d undergone in Copenhagen wasn’t good enough. No, we needed to go through it all over again in the U.S.
    Although shoeless and stripped of anything that could possibly signal an alarm, I got sent back. Why? Well, I’d had my hands in my pocket.
    The guard could have been nicer, explaining the requirement, but he said, instead, “Go back, and this time keep your hands where I can see them.” Guards have a way of comforting harried passengers by using expressions like “this time,” as if we’d been warned a dozen times not to hide our hands.
    It seemed like the tone and determination police use when they instruct a motorist to “exit the vehicle, keep your hands in plain sight and don’t make any sudden moves.”
    Earlier that day at Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport, we stood for an hour — like a wounded snake that slowly drags its length along — as part of a pre-screening process (note: this step occurs before you get down to the nitty-gritty of actual airport security.) The pre-screening consists of a series of questions, such as, “Has anybody placed or attempted to place any objects into your luggage, without your knowledge?”
    How is it possible to give an honest answer? “Without my knowledge?” I’d have to say, “I don’t rightfully know.”
    There are three kinds of guards with TSA, the motherly kind, the fun-loving kind and the gentle kind, all of them capable of shouting “spread ‘em,” meaning “make sure your hands are where I can see them.”
    Now you shouldn’t expect a barrel of laughs from the security crew, but when you’re expected to respond to things beyond the realm of “your knowledge,” it becomes laughable. I need to remember that was not a forum for proper grammar or logic; we were simply trying to board a plane.
    We had slightly better luck than a fellow passenger in Georgia who apparently entered Hartsfield International with a quite dead, freshly killed wolverine, a bit of road-kill that he wanted to munch on in the plane. Questioned by authorities, he must have said, “The sign says I’m entitled to one carrion — plus my laptop.”
    What was that group thinking when it revealed plans to board a British airliner and use liquid explosives? Effectively, that made a huge difference in what people can take on board.
    At the Sunport in Albuquerque, we saw dozens of just-opened bottles of water being tossed into a waste basket. A five-dollar double latte that a woman had been enjoying also needed to be pitched.
    After the “liquid explosives” scare, passengers were required to surrender things like shaving lotion, aerosol cans containing lather, lipstick, liquid deodorant, etc. A woman interviewed on TV around that time complained about having lost some $30 in cosmetics, all of it going to that big trash bin in the sky. I discussed this with my sister Dorothy, who said, “$30? That’s how much I pay for a single tube of lipstick.”
    For the return trip, I looked forward to taking my own bottle of water on board, but even eased security measures required me to surrender it. It’s quite all right to board with bottled water, as long as it’s been purchased — for about four bucks — from one of the “sanitized” and secure kiosks at airports.
    Apparently news of lightened restrictions never got to the good folks at TSA, as I had to surrender the one sealed, never-been-opened pillow-packet of Gloves in a Bottle hand lotion.
    Our luck usually is to have our luggage lost or otherwise re-routed before we get to our travel spot. This time, when we arrived back in Albuquerque, we discovered that of the 186 passengers on that packed plane, only two bags failed to make their way to the luggage carousel.
    Guess whose.
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    As an oldtimer among Oldtimers, I’m happy to participate in the second round of stories and recollections at “Teatime with the Oldtimers.” The program, organized by fellow oldtimers Petey Salman and Editha Bartley, is changing its time, date and place.
    This time the free program will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Sala de Madrid. A crew of oldtimers who have attended or have otherwise been connected with some 15 schools will comprise the panel: Tito Chavez, Ermie Martinez, Manuel Pacheco and me. Please come to listen to and share experiences.
    In keeping with the policy of rotating the bench, Petey and Editha have added new panelists to this program and are always searching for other oldtimers who wish to participate.