When I was a kid, I used to ask if I could watch our things go through the metal detector. They would almost always say yes. My parents would put me through the metal detector first, and the security people (Were they using TSA in the early 90's?) would take me around the back, and let me watch. They would show me the different buttons, and tell me how it worked. It was one of the highlights of travel, second to going into the cockpit and meeting the pilots and seeing the display panels. I even got to sit in the captain's seat once.

Too bad this can never happen when I have kids...

------

Not gone. I took 4 of my (6!) kids into the control tower of the Oakland, CA Airport just last year, simply by asking, without any advance warning.

I sat in the copilot seat of a Southwest Airlines airliner less than 2 months ago, after a flight. There's a clear charade done at major airports regarding your shoes and whatnot, but once you get "outside" that charade, you realize that things are not much different than they've always been.

People are people.

(put your shoes into the plastic tray!)