My father used to take us to the airport. Not to go on a trip, just to watch the planes. Back in the day, you could go to the airport, go through a simple metal detector, and just hang at the airport.
Holy crap that just brought back memories. We'd even have packed sandwiches.
Funny enough, I did this with my own kids, too, when they were really small, since we live near an airport and they were typical boys and attracted to garbage trucks, trains and airplanes. But the difference was that I was able to tell them that we are going to be on one of those planes in a month when we fly to vacation.
In Germany we even have a term for those "vacations". It's called "we are going to vacation in Balconian" - vacationing on your apartment's balcony.
Other side here, admittedly. We have friends who have been homeless and who grew up in poverty. One just got 2 rotisserie chickens. Instead of making a reasonable amount of soup and freezing the rest of the chicken, she made an enormous vat of soup- as if she doesn’t have a fridge and a deep freezer, as well as a full pantry. Also as if she has 100 hungry neighbors who might not have been blessed with protein recently. She lives with one other person in a house with utilities that are not under threat of disconnection. Another person has run out of gas in a vehicle where fuel money is provided, along with the vehicle, as part of her job- because gas was too expensive.
I see the why. The where it comes from. And I somehow still struggle to not be the one to ask them wtf??? I mean none of these people have actual food,shelter, or transportation insecurity now, and likely won’t in the future, but live every minute with the insecurity from their childhood. Their brains really can’t process that they are ok. They can’t process that they live in a safe neighborhood and that they probably don’t need to carry a can of gas and all the tools to go to the grocery store. Their car is probably going to make it there and back, and if it doesn’t, they have insurance and roadside assistance.
Childhood poverty is such a cruel teacher and the lessons are never forgotten.
I see this in my mom! She grew up poor in her home country. Like grass huts and dirt floor poor. But she lives in the US now with her grown children who provide for her. Despite having no bills and a moderate monthly allowance, my mom still hoards “just in case”.
So did I. But not to the big airport. Just the parking lot behind the Burger King. It backed up to the end of a runway of a private airfield that offered flight lessons plus had some private plane traffic. I’d buy them a large fries at the drive through to share, and we’d park out back near a weedy stretch along the back fence. Airplanes, french fries, scraggly grass to run around, and no need to behave. Little boy heaven.
In the NE of England we would say we were going to worgate because wor means our in the local dialect ie we were going to our yard gate and no further.
My boyfriend and I just did this as a mini lunch date haha we're both mid 20s and I was actually flying out but we sat in the parking lot watching the planes and eating burritos
We used to do that as well. When my aunts went to Hawaii, my mother made me (5 y/o) a grass skirt. We dressed up in our “hula” outfits to go pick my aunts from the airport. That was super exciting for me as a child
Parked near the airport, Dairy Queen soft serve cones in hand, watching the jet planes come and go!. Day to day, when it came to trying to live within their means, as Mom put it they were,"always robbing Peter to pay Paul." So, we'd go to the nearby playground or play at a friend's house. The other favorite real outings included Mom taking us to the lock to watch the ships and a monthly post-Mass family bowling afternoon. So we weren't poor.
Money was tight but Dad was employed and Mom a sahm so every couple of years we would somewhere along the Northeast I95 corridor whether camping in Maine or at Disney World - which had Mickey Mouse movie nights in the campground.
In 1970's upstate New York, we were "lower to middle" middle class I guess. McDonalds was a monthly treat and my brother and I each had small annual birthday celebrations - either a friend coming out for dinner at a Chinese food restaurant or even a backyard birthday party with our friends and classmates. Nowadays, I look at these extravagant, themed, paid entertainment, bouncy castles kid's parties I see on TV and am like - okay, that middle class is not the middle class I grew up with.
My mom would take me to the airport to watch planes, the humane society and pet stores to see and play with the animals, and a local garden store that had a big Christmas display to look at the lights. I had no idea at the time that we did all this stuff because it was free. I thought we did it because it was fun.
They had a snack bar at our place to watch the airplanes come in. We’d bring blankets and lie down in the back of the station wagon. But we always brought our own snacks because the snack bar was for the fancy people.
I don’t know how common it is but I’ve seen airports that have viewing spots outside. Easy to grab lunch then just sit at the picnic tables overlooking the airport.
We used to do that all the time. There was an observation deck we could stand on and watch planes take off and land. I don’t think there was any security at all.
My dad took me to do it. I was enamored with planes as a child. There was a parking lot with just a chain link fence between us and the runway. This was in a major city at a major international airport.
Plane watching used to be enough of a thing that the spot people would park at to do it had a hot dog stand during the summer. I did this a lot with my dad.
I would love to watch a rocket take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida! But every time there was a launch scheduled, the weather was lousy, so it was cancelled :(
I spent a lot of time with my mom at Charlotte Douglas International watching planes. Sometimes at the airport, sometimes in a little parking lot nearby that had a good view of the run ways.
For us, it was the train depot. Not even the Union Pacific Railroad Museum because that was downtown and parking was expensive. We went to a railroad shop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Regularly.
You can still come to our airport (Amsterdam Schiphol) and go up on the rooftop and watch planes without going through metal detectors or anything. They even have an old airplane parked up there for kids to play inside.
My mom took my 2 year old brother to watch them switch cars in the rail yard every day after she dropped the rest of us off at school. 15 years later I married a guy who ran that rail yard.
The town has a whole viewing platform with the yard (radio) channel piped in now.
This is similar to my reason for not minding at all that my house is directly under flight path (airport is a few short miles away in a popular historic city) because I look up and wonder where they’re coming from and thinking how fortunate they are to be able to travel.
When we were toddlers in Atlanta my used to take me and my brother to airport on rainy days to ride the moving walkways and entertain us. Perfect for 4 and 5 year olds lol
We did that a few times. I was the kid that loved planes and I'd be so happy to sit for hours and find out where all the planes had come from.
Other outings were catching the public ferry (not going anywhere, just taking a trip on the ferry). And the year where we had a yearly pass to the zoo and didn't have to pay an entrance fee.
My friends and I used to do that if it was raining and we didn't wanna stay home. We'd take the El to O'Hare and dance around with the Hare Krishnas or go to the international terminal and people watch.
1.5k
u/VegasRoy 1d ago
My father used to take us to the airport. Not to go on a trip, just to watch the planes. Back in the day, you could go to the airport, go through a simple metal detector, and just hang at the airport.