Anyone who has seen science fiction movies from the 1940s knows the films never quite got the future right. Dreamers never do. The old films, for instance, often have men and women frolicking in space suits while chatting with each other over telephones with long, twisting cords.
But then such fanczy-free musings keep the mundane world from becoming monotonous.
And that is the message of the Concorde jet.
The Concorde was a glorious notion. The idea of eating caviar at 1,350 miles an hour, arriving in New York City earlier than the plane left Paris and traveling several hundred miles between sips of champagne was irresistible. What's more, the jet was sleek and artsy; looking for all the world like a supersonic whooping crane swooping down from the sky.
Now, that dream is being put on the shelf.
The Concorde proved to be possible. It simply wasn't practical. And that, in a free-market world, was its ultimate undoing.
A Concorde runway accident that killed 113 passengers three years ago, along with a general uneasiness about flying since the 9/11 tragedy, combined to undermine interest and pluck the plane from the sky. And for many, the temptation will be to say the Concorde's time simply had not come. Some may even compare it to the legendary Phoenix. That bird, too, ended up on the ash heap, though it eventually rose to become even more wonderful than before. And perhaps that will eventually be the fate of the Concorde. One day, perhaps, the world may have a fleet of planes shuttling people around at supersonic speeds. Traffic cops may one day work a morning shift in Boston and the afternoon in Bombay. Kids may whisk their prom dates off to Paris for dinner before the big dance at Bountiful High. Handwritten letters may start arriving from Europe as quickly as e-mail.
Or maybe not.
Dreaming is no crime. It just never seems to play out. If there's a lesson in those old space movies, it's that progress never quite takes the route we anticipate.
For 27 years, progress did take the form of the Concorde. That's a pretty good run for a dream.
And it was a wonderful ride — almost Disneyesque in its scope and beauty.
Now, however, it is time to awaken and get to work, get back to the stodgy, boring business of making practical decisions that work in the workaday world.