Sitting in airports gives me more pause for thought, literally and figuratively, than anything else during my basketball travels.
I’m always traveling alone. Occasionally, one of the teams I’m covering is also at the airport, but never the same gate. Once I took a cab to the airport, and arrived at the same time as the bus carrying the UC Davis Aggies.
I ran into a referee in Burbank (or was it Denver?). She said: “Are you following me?”.
“Yes”, I said. Coincidentally, I was at the last two games she’d worked in northern California.
I used to think airports were romantic places, with stories everywhere one looked. The romance died after people could no longer say goodbye or hello at the gates. Today people in airports are less romantic, less intelligent, much less patient. (“National security” is partly to blame for that. Just getting to the gate is lots more stressful than it used to be.)
I also used to think airports and airplanes were places to write. Anyplace should be a place to write, with the idea that the location itself colors the words, but I’ve lost the energy to write all the time.
I’d wager that airports are still excellent places to drink. No one blinks if you’re downing Bailey’s at 9 a.m. local time, because that lame old saying “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere” is never better applied than at an airport bar, where morning drinkers could be working on homeward clocks.
I’m go for a drink now, but I’m fair sure if I looked at a TV, highlights from the Indiana Pacers’ 1-in-1414 win at New York last Wednesday would still be in heavy rotation.