I know it's probably no comfort, but the odds of you getting killed while driving up to Fenway Park on any given day are WAY higher than you getting killed in a plane crash. I fly all the time for work and I'm more afraid of the brainless TSA agents scanning my body for explosives than the bird going down. Seriously, most of those people wouldn't get hired at Arby's. Have fun!
 

Ha, thanks. And sorry I left you out of the will. You obviously get all the Red Sox memorabilia, including the Gedman collection....
 

I'll second Patrick's point, he's right, and flying is much safer than driving. Of course, if anxiety responded to evidence and statistics the world would be a much happier place.
 

The drivers were somehow worse than usual today--I guess it's true, I'm way more likely to get killed by one of those fools than in a plane.
 

Jere, I developed that same fear about five years ago. I don't like giving up control of my life to others. The drugs helped. They don't knock you out, but just take the anxious edge off. (Don't drink alcohol with them---you will get loopy.) I used them for two flights and have not needed them since. So, it might be a trade-off...a couple flights of drug-induced calm for future years of better traveling (if you can call air travel "better"). I still take the train whenever possible, just for convenience sake.

At any rate, enjoy your trip. We've never been to a spring training game.
 

Thanks Kat.

And here's the comment my mom attempted to make but couldn't since I have to have word verification on again since I get 20 spam comments a day otherwise:


Jere, Mom here.
I would rate this as the most hilarious post of all times. (Texting pilots!) Brian Cashman jumped out of a plane and broke his leg. Would that mean he broke it when he landed? Or did he bump his leg on the side of the plane when he jumped? Detail, man! Please. I am in hysterics.
Fortunately, your plane departs at 6 AM. I presume, having known you since the day you were born and several months before when you were doing cartwheels in utero, you will have stayed up all night--why go to bed if you have to be somewhere at 4AM?--you might well be too groggy to be in terror. But what comes around, comes around. As we flew into the Bahamas when you were four after circling for half an hour because of "a wind shear situation" you announced very loudly from your vantage point of nose-pressed-against-the-window, "Mom! This plane is flying backwards!" Many of the passengers told me on the way off the plane they wished they were little kids and never considered that the plane might have been crashing--just flying backwards. I have to add that your nephew Joe, while we were flying to Orlando, said in the same voice as his uncle as he read the in-flight info card, "Well, this is crazy. 'What do do in case of fire?' In case of fire, the plane will crash and we'll all be dead!" The Nigerian Yale student who had the misfortune of being assigned the seat next to Joe told me in the baggage pick-up, "The boy calmed my nerves. I thought if worse came to worse I will be accompanied into the next world by this typically wondeerful American child." See you in [town name/date, which like I said I don't like to say until I'm home again--ed.]