Lessons in Kindness at the Atlanta Airport

There was so much unexpected kindness this morning at the airport.  I got dinged going through security and opted out (= pat down).  I won't go through the big radiation machines, so I've had dozens of these pat downs.  Some have been so invasive that I've reported it.  Atlanta TSA officer Lundi was amazing.  She talked me through it and was very gentle, taking extra care to be respectful. This may seem like a small matter, but it's not.  I accept going through security because I want to travel, but it's degrading to be examined, fed through a machine, patted down, luggage searched.  Not just personally degrading, but collectively degrading.  It's a small fraction of what prisoners go through, and yet it is the same kind of process.  My parents are Holocaust survivors and I take every kind of border control seriously.  Even before President Trump was elected,  going through security made me ask "What would happen with TSA if the US turned fascist?"  Los Angeles, where I live, has the unfriendliest TSA I've encountered.  Atlanta now takes the cake as the friendliest.  But I wonder if a friendly face on an egregious system is better or worse? 

A shout out to the food court workers at Delta Terminal B, too!  When I sat down to eat my breakfast of boiled eggs and rice cakes, one of the workers must have thought I didn't have enough napkins, because she brought over a bundle.  I was so surprised and grateful.  Another man, helping to keep the line going at one of the eateries got me mayo and an empty cup.  I didn't even order from there. Balm on a sad heart leaving my aged father.  Lessons in how much kindness matters today from the workers at the Atlanta airport.