My work life was divided, simplistically, into pre-9/11 and post-9/11. Pre-9/11, airport “security” was not super secure. Shoes remained on, belts too. Heck, you could carry on all the shampoo you wanted, no clear plastic baggies needed here. You didn’t even need to show an ID when traveling within the US. You could accompany anyone right up to the gate. There was no secondary screening, no bomb sniffing dogs. Obviously, that all changed on that terrible day. And we got used to it.
My nieces and nephews have never lived (alright, technically my nephew lived for four months) pre-9/11. Their reality of the airport is only post. Which brings me to my main thought…
Will post COVID introduce permanent changes to the way we do things? Will we see masks in the US and Europe as prevalently as you do in some Asian cities? Will people start to vaccinate their kids again to stop the spread of previously nearly eradicated diseases? Will restaurants and bars need to redeploy seating charts and municipalities reconsider occupancy limits? Will major music festivals and concerts and sporting events change? Is the handshake a thing of bygone days?
Today, it’s hard to know. What lays in store for society, for travel, for our future? Will children born in 2020 ever know the same loose society we knew just in 2019? I guess this all depends on the effectiveness of therapeutics and vaccines. Time will tell. I guess we’ll just need to wait and see.
The Traveling Ridleys: Sunday Journal 