Tuesday, May 18, 1999 I finished mowing the lawn at 2:30 p.m. Joyce completed the packing by 5:15 and we had our dinner. Phil (our youngest son, age 39 years) arrived at 5:30. We departed for the Philadelphia International Airport; unloading at Terminal A, British Airways, about 6:45. Phil, who flies frequently, instructed us to say the following when approached by a porter, "We are fine, thank you." That remark saved us two dollars. The counter is right inside, twenty or thirty feet from the entrance. There were only a few people ahead of us. We reached the weigh-in counter at approximately 7:00. A problem -- the computer went down just as our first piece of luggage was placed on the scale. Most of the British Airways' clerks were women and dressed in outfits -- spotted dress and dark blue hat -- in vogue, I suspect, shortly after the Wright brothers invented the airplane. A pleasant woman informed us that her computer would be back online in a few minutes. A half-hour passed. The people standing behind us now numbered over one hundred. I asked the young lady if her computer terminal was connected to a mainframe. "Yes," she responded. "Where is it located?" "London." "Oh, then your signal comes via satellite?" She did not know; then informed us that her shift ended at 8:00. At 7:58 she filled out manually some cards, placed our luggage on a conveyor belt and merrily sent us on to . . . where another female clerk routinely processed us, directing Joyce and me to sit down, which we did. Surprisingly, we boarded the airplane on time. We did not, however, depart at 8:45. No, we sat in our seats for two hours, the captain giving us encouragement from time to time. According to him, the weather was bad west of the airport. The domestic flights were delayed. But he assured us that the "Tower" was doing everything possible to get us on our way . . . . It was only much later, in Germany, per telephone call to Molly's (daughter-in-law, 41 years old) mother, that we learned the true cause of the delay -- a bomb scare -- need I say more!