People watching - the great American pastime

Airports are among the prime people watching spots in existence. They are the crossroads of culture in our present world - businessmen and women, families on the way to see grandma, foreigners both local and distant, and an ever changing vista of young and old. All with agendas, all worn down by the burdens of contemporary air travel.

Coming back from our recent cruise, we spent several hours in Houston's Hobby airport. Hobby is transitioning from a small downtown regional airport into an international airport, and there is major construction going on. Add to that confusion the effects of an hours-late cruise ship arrival dumping hundreds of missed-connection passengers at the ticketing counters of an already crowded facility and the chance for observing people under stress increases a thousandfold.

We settled our transportation changes rather quickly, thanks to Barb's suggestion that we call Southwest, rather than stand in the long, long line, and we found a relatively calm place to park and watch the mayhem around us.

A number of collegiate sports teams were criss-crossing the country by way of Southwest and Hobby; we saw the Illinois State softball team, hauling baggage, bats, and buckets of balls. Made me wonder if the bats and balls were carry-on, checked at the gate, part of your allotted 2 bags or all of the above. I never thought about how much equipment a ball team has to schlep around.

The Stanford Baseball team came through on the way home after a series with the Rice Owls. We chatted with one of the coaches about their outing. They split the series but didn't get in the rubber match because of bad weather. They were happy to be going home to sunny California.

Perhaps the most unusual group we noticed was a wheelchair rugby team; each member in a more-or-less conventional wheelchair, pushing another wheelchair, which from the beat-up condition must have been the competition chairs. Each was piled high with luggage, and they made an interesting parade. About this same time there was a couple nearby, the young woman in a wheelchair and a young man accompanying her. They seemed to be having a good time as he wheeled her around the concourse, racing and twirling and spinning. They kept running into people (me, for one) in their frivolity, but only the young woman seemed concerned about it.

 Waiting at the gate we saw a woman with a dog as big as a small child, along with a young child who couldn't sit still. Perhaps the dog was a service animal. Perhaps it was a spoiled pet. Across from me, I noticed someone who can only be described as a geek with a back pack stuffed with 3 - count 'em, 3 - MacBook Air laptops, 2 iPads and at least one cell phone. He sorted through the MacBooks to find the one he wanted, put the iPads back in the pack, connected his iPhone as a hotspot and began doing whatever geeks do in airports. Play games, probably.

And then there were these two old senior citizens, weary from a week away and a long wait to get started home.