Why I will never, ever, EVER, forgive the Right.

You know me. Come into my house, and there’s aviation materials all over the place. Go and look at my desk, and the largest picture is not of my wife, not of my son, but of my beloved B-17 Flying Fortress.

My computer wallpapers are aviation photos…even my startup sound is the roar of the mighty Wright R-1820.

Suffice to say, I like airplanes. It’s really been my life’s interest, since I was a wee lad. My father tells me that one of my very first words was “airplane”. I am forever grateful to his friend Bob for giving me my first ride at around the age of 7, in his wonderful, vintage Piper J-3 Cub.

Ever since then, I’ve been hooked. I lived near the airport, have a scanner to listen in, and am serious enough about flight simming to keep a logbook…the current iteration of which is about 40 hours, but I have more than 350 hours logged since I bought my first simulator a few years back. Flying the real thing has remained out of reach, though.

Growing up, my grandparents spent the winter in Palm Beach, Florida…and an annual ritual was heading down for April vacation and then spring break. As always with Italians, that was a family affair. We always, always, always stopped to visit my Aunt Nora in East Boston. In those days, we flew Eastern Airlines, always the 10pm BOS-TPA-PBI. In later years, it was Delta….but there was always a visit to our relatives in East Boston on the way to the airport.

I joke now that everybody hates to fly with me, because I’m always chattering about procedures, where we are, what the airplane is doing, calling out landmarks, v-ref speeds, and whatever else pops into my head. I always talked to the flight attendants on board…tried to meet the flight crew….and no trip via aircraft was complete without the obligatory visit to the cockpit upon boarding or deplaning.

But then, on a beautiful September morning, two jets took off from Logan Airport and changed the course of history.

It’s been six years since that awful day…and I’ve only flown twice since then. We’ve been planning our vacations to be local, or no more than a day’s drive away. The airline industry has been in a tailspin; the prices keep going up and up while the service keeps going down and down. Just today, Northwest airlines announced that it was going to charge more for aisle and exit row seats.

But that’s not why I will never forgive the Bush ‘administration’. You can’t get on a plane today without being subject to background checks, a whole host of security measures that are ineffective, and all along being poked and prodded by surly, ill-mannered employees of the federal government.

Some among us will chastise me and say “but, you’re safer than before”. But I say no, we’re only cowed and browbeaten, and because this government is so out of control, nobody dares to stand up and point out the constitutional violations that take place in every airport and on every single day. I’m certain that I am on the no-fly list, simply for running this blog, and at Air America Place, and for daring to speak my mind.

It’s for this reason… It’s because they have taken the joy and the magic of flight and turned it into government intrusion and fearmongering….that I will never forgive the right. They have taken the one thing that has brought me constant joy and excitement in my life away from me, and turned it into something tedious and hateful. I still look at the sky for whatever is overhead when I hear an aero engine…..but the joy is gone.

And that, my friends, is unforgiveable.