Lessons

She's learned a lot today already. It's 10 AM and she has been glued to The History Channel for the entire morning.

She learned that Dulles Airport was the first jet port in the United States and was opened in 1962.

She learned that the DC-8 aircraft was called the paper plane because it started to sell to airlines while it was still on the drawing board, literally.

But the thing that she learned that floored her was this: With all our technology and all the time we have had to perfect our technology, 15 of our airports still use falcons, yes, the actual birds, to keep other birds away from the runways to prevent crashes caused by bird impacts with planes.

We rely on FALCONS to prevent crashes of those gigantic, fantastic, technologically advanced super jets on take-off and landing. With all our computers and our education, we rely on a falcon to scare other birds away from runways so we can safely land our planes.

She thinks, "My, my, my, how misplaced our vanity is."