Lileks is always a great read. Thanks for posting!
I find it disturbing there are many people today who do not know how to get from their home to a grocery store two miles away, unless told how to get there, turn by turn, by their phone.
I remember those days! LOL!
It’s funny...I traveled a lot internationally for work for several years in the mid 70s. For the life of me, I don’t recall how I got my airplane tickets. I think my company’s travel office prepaid them for me and I picked them up at the airport, but I’m not actually sure.
I DO remember arriving in the Philippines in the spring of ‘77 without a visa and had to talk my way in.
I’m kind of a paper map geek. They do have the advantage of being useful with no batteries or GPS systems.
I drove professionally for a few years back in the 80s, and you had to be able to read a map or you were sunk. Especially up in the hills where there were no straight lines.
You would go to the airport, the agent who checked you in would take the first copy, the gate agent would take the next copy, and you would keep the third copy as your boarding pass. The connecting gate agent would repeat the process with the extra tickets you were given.
You would keep your return tickets in a safe place.
-PJ
Watched an old episode of Adam-12 a few months ago. People walked freely through airports, and they only wanded a particular flight because there was a credible threat of a gun.
How nice it must have been to travel effortlessly back then.
I rarely used maps. I swear my dad knew every state and federal highway ever built before 2978. If I was going to drive cross country he’d tell me what route to take and I would write it down.
Nowadays I Google the route, commit it to memory and away I go. Then argue with my wife all the way there because she thinks we’re going to get lost. 17 years and she still has never been right.
Plane tickets were bought at the counter after msking a phone call to the airline and getting a reservation.
Link goes to a generic page.
In 1983, I picked up a flight schedule at LaGuardia with flights coming and going to most major airports. It was about 4x8 and a half inch thick with tiny print. I’d go to the airport and buy my ticket paying cash. There was always a seat. It was great knowing all the options to make plans.
I used to use travel agents sometimes but I think they usually could print up the tickets while I waited.