Vanessa WoodHave I told you about the time airport security demanded I remove my sewing scissors from my carry-on?
In the early 1990s I attended a work seminar in the Napa Valley. That’s where I spotted, at a ‘car boot sale’ (akin to a pop-up flea market), a very old, very large pair of scissors. I was a dedicated quilter back then and thought they were a perfect piece of decor to hang near my sewing machine. Never a second thought after paying and later packing them for the return flight home through San Francisco. It was the look on the guard’s face at the airport x-ray machine that became the first clue something was amiss. I probably had a befuddled look on my own face that cleared when she pointed out the imposing image on the monitor. It was solved by removing them from the carry-on and placing them in the piece of checked luggage.
In 2026, a quarter after 9/11 and the strict air travel rules that followed, this seems like an absurd story. Can you imagine trying to get these scissors on a plane today? I doubt that airport security would be keen to return them to you.
Funny (and absurd) family stories can give our written histories context as well as humor. This story shows where I was at a point in time, what I was doing, that I was a quilter, and what airport security was like in the early 1990s.
My mother was impressed with a coincidence that occurred when she was a child. It was something she included in her family story written down in her seventies. In the 1930s her family migrated by car from the Midwest to California. She recalled that on Route 66 they spotted her cousin hitchhiking back to the Midwest. The coincidence helped to document when and where they went and that they got there by car on Route 66.
What funny story in your family would tell a future reader where you were and what life was like?
I hope you’ll consider making a list of your own funny stories and coincidences. If you have older relatives to interview, consider adding specific questions about their own funny experiences. Their story may hold the clue to documenting an ancestor in a place or time.
