Looking out the window

One of the great pleasures of being in a vehicle is looking out the window. Planes, boats, trains. Matters not. And cars. Especially cars. 

Even though I usually take an aisle seat, I love looking out the window on a plane. I love when you can spot the sights: Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Manhattan skyline. I love seeing the meandering shapes of rivers. I love flying at night and seeing the lit up towns below.  Once, flying home from a business trip to Minneapolis on July 3rd, I passed over several towns that were shooting off their fireworks. Magic! I love sunrise out the plane window. Sunset. Clouds. Storms. I even like staring out into the nothingness on an overnight flight over the ocean. I love when we spot the coast of Ireland.

I don't spend a lot of times on boats, but when I am on a boat heading to the Cape or to Salem, Mass, I spend my time staring out the window. I suppose I'd do the same if I were ever to go on a cruise.

I love looking out the window on a train, imagining who lives in those farmhouses we're chugging by, who lives in those towns. And wondering what's going on in the station we're stopped at. When I was a kid, we sometimes took the train to visit our Chicago family. That wonderful place outside of Cleveland where wild roses grew on the side of the tracks. It's as vivid to me now as it was when I first saw it out the train window well over 60 years ago. And those beautiful Lombardy poplars in the fog somewhere in Indiana. On one of those train trips - I must have been about four - a soldier sitting in the seat in front of me kept pulling down the shared window shade so he could sleep. I would inch it up just a bit, and he would slam it back down. I don't care if he just got back from the Korean War: meanie!

One of the eeriest things I ever saw from a train window was the view when we were pulling out of Newark heading to Boston on an Amtrak on September 12, 2001. The length of Manhattan was covered with a big black cloud. 

I love looking out the car window. 

Sure, being a passenger can bring on the drowsies, but when you're awake, you get to watch the world passing by without having to worry about keeping your eyes on the road.

Even when you are worrying about keeping your eyes on the road - i.e., you're in the driver's street - you still get to see stuff: trees, cows, farm houses, church steeples.

One thing I loved about the long drive to Syracuse I used to make (solo) several times a year for business was passing through all those worn-down, worn-out industrial towns, and imagining what they once were: Amsterdam! Gloversville! Canajoharie (and its abandoned Beech-Nut Life Saver plant)! Seeing the Erie Canal and thinking of all those Irishmen, putting their corduroy britches on and carving out the route with their picks and shovels. 

But being a passenger's better.

My memory is full of childhood snapshots and tiny videos of things we saw on the frequent rides my family took. Cellar hole houses, where the people living in them could not yet afford to put an actual house on the foundation and were living in their basements. Houses with no front steps, because - or so my father said - you paid less in property taxes if your residence was not yet finished. The grand houses on the west side of Worcester. Doctors, lawyers, rich folks.

The package store in Cherry Valley where, when we passed, someone was sure to say "that's where Maureen fell." (When I was three or four, having accompanied my father and sister to the packy to pick up his monthly ration of beer (one case) or maybe a bottle of Four Roses if they were having company and my father was going to make highballs, I tripped coming out. That stumble is an indelible memory, as is the family chorus of "that's where Maureen fell." The long-gone ice cream shop, further out on Route 9, where, when we passed, someone was sure to say "that's where the monkey stole Kathleen's cookie," which happened when she was a baby. Before any of the rest of us were around. 

I loved seeing the neatly trimmed cemetery hedges that spelled out PRAY FOR US, which, as a child, I thought was a miracle, realizing when I was well passed the age of reason that they were planted and trimmed that way.

I loved the night rides we took around Christmas, when we got to see all the houses decked out. 

The sights from the grim ride we took on the Sunday after JFK was assassinated remain with me. My parents wanted to get us away from the constant barrage of death and sorry - that morning we'd been watching live when Lee Harvey Oswald was gunned down on TV - so we packed into the car for a drive around Worcester. There was no escaping. We drove through downtown and all the stores had portraits of Kennedy, draped in black bunting, in their windows.

I especially love looking our car windows.

So I can't imagine wanting to be in a windowless vehicle of any sort, let alone a car. 

But that's apparently what Apple has in mind for the brave new world of self-driving cars.

Other than for the fact that it will mean the end of a livelihood for the millions of folks who drive trains, boats, planes, trucks, and cars for a living, I welcome the coming of the autonomous vehicle. I will have no problem whatsoever hopping into a self-driving Uber and heading off to my destination. I may not want an autonomous trip for a long-haul journey. But putzing around the city? Cool. And I will want there to be a human pilot or two on board the flight, just in case the AI decides to take a nosedive. Mostly, autonomous vehicles are one aspect of the coming hellscape that I don't think I'll mind. 

As long as I can still look out the window. 

But Apple, I guess, finds looking out the window at the real world isn't all that necessary when you could be enclosed in a car goofing around with Virtual Reality.

On May 3rd, 2022, Apple filed a patent with the United States Patent & Trademark Office for an in-car VR entertainment system that utilizes the motion of the vehicle to further immerse passengers in their in-headset experiences. VR content is synchronized with the movement and acceleration of the autonomous vehicle as it travels to the desired location, offering a unique location-based experience that changes based on your commute.

In addition to entertainment, the patent details how the technology referenced could be used to reduce motion sickness. Instead of conventional windows, passengers would view the outside world by using their VR headset to access cameras mounted on the outside of the vehicle. The technology could also be used to watch videos and read books in a stabilized environment as well as conduct virtual meetings while on the road. (Source: VR Scout)

And, just so that no one gets distracted by their VR fun and games, the car will be windowless.

The good news for families going out for a spin - if anyone enjoys such a passive, non-action activity these days - is that no one will fight for a window seat.

But me? I'd sure miss looking out the window...