Watching the Sky Over Millbrae

On Saturday I was at the soccer field and I caught a glimpse of the Blue Angels warming up for Fleet Week in San Francisco. I started thinking about how many times a day I see airplanes.  With SFO in our backyard, we are the gateway to the Bay Area. So many people pass through the air above our little town on their way to other countries or arrive here from other states or foreign lands.  It is a daily fact of life many of us take for granted.

Before writing tonight,  I watched a new show on ABC -  Pan Am.  Set  in 1963, this series follows a flight crew to foreign destinations. In tonight's episode the crew flew to Berlin where President Kennedy was giving a speech. How different the world was then, for our parents and grandparents.  How different it was to be a kid!  No computers, no cell phones, and only a few channels on T.V. to see the world outside our own neighborhood.

Today, with the Internet, our world is supposed to be much smaller, and everyone more connected than 50 years ago.  We can have skype conversations with our families while we are on vacation in Italy.  We can watch soccer games in Brazil or bike races in France as they happen. If there is something we are curious about we just "Google" it. We can be anywhere in the world at any time and never leave our living-room.

In Millbrae today there are families who came here from other countries, and who still have relatives abroad.  There are parents who work for the airlines and travel for a living. There are also families who might never leave California or travel farther than Tahoe or Disneyland.  We all experience our world differently, yet we all sleep under the same sky.

Everyone has their own definition of their world, big or small.  Some people keep their world view to themselves.  Some are able to share.  I am hopeful that more people in our community will find ways to share their world with others and make us all richer. As for me,  I am going to keep watching the sky.