Not Quite Manufacturing

October 13th, 2008 at 06:25pm Bob Trojan

As the title suggests, this isn’t anything to do with manufacturing, but more of a personal observation.  Over a long weekend, my wife and I attended a family gathering to “celebrate” the passing of one of our senior members.  It was held in Plymouth, MA and we flew in and out of the Providence, RI airport, very close to where we lived before we came “back home” almost 20 years ago.

While arriving at the T. F. Green Providence airport, I was stunned at what I saw.  It is a new, larger airport, hosting a number of airlines (we flew United).  When I asked a police officer at the Starbucks what happened, he said “they built a new one,  in 1996, and the old one was torn down later.  The it was improved to add in all the security features”. I flew out of the old one many times in the late 1980’s before I relocated to the Rockford Region in 1990.  Was I impressed?  You bet!!

As we drove from the Providence airport towards Plymouth, I observed numerous businesses that I didn’t remember from 20 years ago.  Well, maybe my mind was forgetting?  It seemed like there were many more than I remembered.

How about the roads?  We took I-95, I195, I495 mainly, and what a smooth sailing (pun, RI is the Ocean State).  Compared to the roads of northern Illinois, it is what like driving on air!.  Oh, yes, no tolls. Also, we had a GPS device that talked to us as we made our way from the airport to Plymouth (yeah, the one with the Rock).

We also observed the politeness of passengers on both flights towards each other.  Easterners tend to be (at least in the past) pretty gruff.  But on this trip, we were pleasantly surprised.  Good ‘ole fashioned being courteous.

When boarding our flight home and walking down the aisle of the airplane, I noticed so many people reading/talking to their Blackberries, telephones, etc.  I mentioned to one guy, “whatever happened to the days of smoke signals”.  He chuckled and said “I wish I could get rid of this thing”.  Obviously, a corporate type!

I’ve kept up since leaving RI with flying, driving and all the tech stuff, but this kinda make me look at a 20 year window to see how far we’ve come and the changes some of us have made.

Entry Filed under: People