Flying is such fun these days!

Just returned from a trip from San Jose, California, to Dallas Texas, on American Airlines. Haven't flown American in awhile, and forgot that the seats seem to be getting smaller and smaller (not our butts are getting bigger and bigger). On the trip to Dallas, the gentlemen in front of my husband reclined his seat as far back as it would go. My husband is 6'2" but most of this height is from the waist up, he is short legged with only a 32" inseam. Still, his knees were against the seat in front of him, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. So now his knees were against the seat back, as they had started out, and the other man's head was nearly in his lap. He wriggled and moved around and did his best to find some way of getting comfortable. Luckily the old gentlemen in the reclined seat asked if there was some problem. My husband told him he was sorry, but his knees touched the seat back and there was nothing he could do to change that. The old gentlemen brought his seat back to the upright position and grumbled about poor engineering.

Bless that thoughtful man who realized the only way he was going to be comfortably reclined would be to make the man behind him miserable, and he chose to be polite and considerate, as people of that generation seem to be.

Not so the young man in front of me on the return flight. He reclined his seat as far back as it would go, and then almost never sat back. I spent the entire flight with his seat back in my lap, and he spent it with his head against the seat in front of him. Add in the completely unrestrained child behind me who kept kicking the back of my seat and was never once corrected by either parent, and it made me very glad the flight was only 3 hours 40 minutes long.

So I ask myself, what happened to consideration of others, to caring about someone else besides yourself. And my answer is, the old gentleman in front of my husband cared enough about others to rethink the reclining position. The YOUNG man in front of me and the YOUNG parents behind me did not care or even notice that there was someone else being affected by their action and inaction. Their generation never does.

Need I say more?