A list of things that were true on August 27, 2001

You didn't fly through Columbus, Ohio then.

Portland, OR would let you go the gate without a boarding pass...

Not my experience in US airports. That restriction didn't exist at most airports (any airports that I boarded or arrived at) until after 9/11.

Watch TV shows from the era (Friends, for example, or the Jet Li "Romeo and Juliet" movie) and you'll see the same thing: we used to be able to see people off at the gate. Such people still needed to go through security, of course, but they did not need a boarding pass to do so.

In the US maybe. In most countries anyone can get to the gate in a domestic terminal.

Not only did you not need a pass, but often times people would go to the boarding area and watch planes go off for an afternoon of 'fun'. Others would go and photograph all the planes (in case any crashed they would cash in $$$)

This is one of things that I used to be able to do, that I miss the most.

Yes, you could. I feel a big difference hugging a loved one goodbye when they enter the security maze, compared to when they disappear from sight at the gate. They dribble away at the security maze, but man, at the gate they're taken from you. You see the plane door close and suddenly they're not even breathing the same air as you.

And when the plane taxis away, if you're at the gate you can press your face against the glass and watch, and wave if you're lucky. At some airports, like Seattle, it's possible to watch the plane through the entire taxi and takeoff. When my (now ex) wife flew from Seattle to China, I remember watching the MD11 take off, and following the plane until I couldn't see it and then the exhaust until I couldn't see it and finally watching nothing but empty sky.

Security theater merely irritates and angers me, but here they've taken away an emotional thing from me.

It was a US thing. Most international airports never allowed it.

Undeserved downvotes folks.

I don't know why people keep voting this guy down. Just because you could go to the gate in the US doesn't mean it was true everywhere. My dad travelled internationally a lot for work and frequently mentioned how much tighter airport security was in a lot of places.

Not only could you, but some airports counted on it. Midway Airport in Chicago was just completing a massive rebuild in 2001 and the new terminal had (has!) a big area immediately behind security that was designed as a meeting place with cafes for people seeing someone off; the way it's designed there's no way to move security the other side of this, and so it never took off the way they intended.

If it's indecipherable, how do you know it's threatening?

Or perhaps surrounded by a giant cloud, wanting desperately to touch its creator and elevate itself to a higher plane of existence.

Which will likely translate as "Keep your damn ball out of my yard, you kids!"