I believe they still do this at the University of Florida. I know they did in the '90s. And it was more than brown rice – they had a whole meal going on.
The hellfire preachers used to come through and shout about sin and damnation. And there were the Hare Krishnas, giving out food.
I used to help them set up, then sit and talk religion w/ the head of the local temple. One time they had the big kahuna, head of ISKCON, visit during Diwali, and I sat and talked religion with him, too, while eating supper on the floor of a barn.
Very different scene from the old airport flower-pushers.
I watched The Omen recently and this time around it seemed so weird for the doctor to offer a cigarette to the boy’s mother and share a smoke outside the examining room. In the Vatican scenes, too, there were ashtrays on the conference tables and it was just bizarre.
Florida has some large highway rest stops just after you enter the state; they used to be crawling with Hare Krishnas. It should have been legal to just shoot the bastards.
I remember sometimes seeing ordained members of Recognised Mainstream Christian Religions (Anglican/Catholic/Methodist/Presbyterian/etc) at airports in New Zealand in the '90s. They were never intrusive- they’d just be standing in the arrival area with a collection tin, usually wearing either priest’s clothing and/or a little (official) name tag that said something like “Rev. John Smith, Devonport Anglican Church”.
They’d never actively solicit donations, they never bothered anyone, but they were always happy to provide directions to travellers or generally chat with people, and no-one minded them being there.
I’ve occasionally seen them here in Australia, too, but Australia/NZ doesn’t have the same tradition of religious proselytising that the US does and whilst (almost) no-one here minds the local church Minister or the Salvation Army being at the airport to take donations from people who want to make them, I imagine if the Hare Krishnas or anyone like that started annoying people at airports here, they’d very quickly find a way of moving them on.
I’m 24 and it started with me reading the Face on the Milk Carton books and thinking, “Oh, Hare Krishnas, guys in saffron, hang out at airports, and it’s the same cult where kidnapper Hannah hung out. Cool.”
For the record that already surprises me and I’m 25, but then again I hadn’t ever really flown until about 2 years ago, so the security is par for the course for me.
Maybe it depends where your “home airports” are. Here in Canada, I’ve passed through most major (and more than a few minor) security checkpoints in my life, and I don’t ever recall that non-passengers were allowed past the security checkpoint. Even pre-9/11, only those with boarding passes could go beyond. Those seeing off passengers would say goodbye at the checkpoint, and those awaiting arriving passengers would all wait at the exit. Things got crowded and confusing at those places, as you can probably tell, but it all worked. It was a bit of a shock for me to go through foreign airports and discover that non-travellers could go past the checkpoints.
I’ve been flying in the US since I was almost 15, and still do have to fly on occasion. When I started flying, it was common for passengers to have family or friends in the waiting room with them until it was actually time to board, and it was common to have family or friends waiting there when the passengers stepped off the plane. Passengers and their companions could also get a bite or a drink at an airport concession stand (it was way overpriced, but it was convenient). It was possible to board without showing ID, and people used tickets issued in someone else’s name on occasion. Passengers were, of course, allowed to bring on far more items than we can now, including liquids. I’m pretty sure that we weren’t supposed to bring our own booze onto the plane. I’m also pretty sure that a lot of people did it anyway.
I really don’t think that we’re that much safer with all of our new regulations, either.
And yeah, back when I started flying, in the 70s, the cultists did hang out in the airport and harass anyone walking by. They used to hang out in the mall, too, asking for donations and Spreading The Word. It was a 70s thing, you had to be there to really appreciate it, or really understand the hate for it.
Non-passengers have never been allowed past a certain point in the UK, at least not in the 30 years I’ve been flying. But then we’ve had terrorist attacks on British soil for a very long time.
I was born in the early 60s and many, many adults smoked. Most houses had cigarettes and lighters on coffee tables in cute little services. People at work smoked like chimneys even into the late 70s. Looking back, this was bizarre. Same with drinking. I suppose Mad Men plays this up.
At SJU, even though it’s legally a USAmerican airport, the secure zone (gates) has been for ticketed passengers only since the 1970s – and even further, the baggage-claim area has also been closed (though not “secure”, you can’t backtrack into the gates) at least as long so anyone receiving you has to be outside baggage claim (heck, at the AA terminal someone actually compares your luggage tag with your claim sticker as you leave!). When I started flying regularly c. 1980 it was somewhat exciting to travel to places where people could meet you at gateside.
The first level of security, in the mid-70s, came from the hijackings (usually to Cuba) and were designed to find guns and not much else. Before that things were pretty lax. In December 1970 I brought my hamster on the plane with me in my camera bag, and no one noticed. They did make sure that nothing was in his cage, which I checked, but they never thought to check me.
And yes it was very common to be seen off and met at the gate. Not just airplanes. When I was a kid we saw my great aunt off on the SS. United States, and we got to board with her and go with her to her cabin, leaving before the ship left. Now you have all sorts of screening before you go on a ship, and no one but passengers are allowed to board.
Look, on behalf of all of the other Hindus, we think the Hare Krishnas are really weird. Hindus don’t prosletyize, because they figure everyone’s going to get a chance to be a Hindu in some lifetime or other anyway, and all paths lead to the same place.
Hare Krishnas were still in airports during the early 80s, weren’t they? I swear I remember seeing some in Logan in 1982 when we picked up my aunt the day before I started kindergarten.
I’d say more than “on occasion.” I entered college in 1987, and there was a big “travel board” in the student union where you could arrange carpools or exchange/sell airline tickets with other students. My freshman year, I hadn’t planned to go home for Thanksgiving (I lived 1000 miles away) but I got homesick and ended up buying a plane ticket off the travel board for $75 or something. It got me within 200 miles of home, and my parents came and picked me up at the airport (and were waiting at the gate, of course).
