Yogurt Fans, Airport Fast-Food Freaks May Duke It Out

We are getting mixed signals about what kind of facilities we can expect in our new airport terminal building and, frankly, I am worried.

Orange County residents already carry a heavy burden when dealing with the outside world because we have long had a reputation--not altogether undeserved--of nurturing and frequently spawning every nutty movement to sweep the United States.

We are seen in some quarters as quiche-eaters who spend most of our time either surfing or shooting people on the freeways, as bounded intellectually by Disneyland and the Crystal Cathedral, as sun worshipers with a youth fetish that never quits, and as political primitives and cultural eunuchs.

We have helped the image along. Our congressmen have long attracted media attention more for outrageous statements and flamboyant outside activities than bills they have introduced. We tend to treat social problems either by pretending they don’t exist or by being aggrieved that all of our citizens aren’t staunchly middle-class. We deal with the need for low-cost housing by building $250,000 condominiums. Things like that.

But we’re getting better. We have our own Performing Arts Center now and our own major league baseball and football teams. Our congressmen haven’t tried to manhandle one of their associates or warned about a Communist army on the Mexican border in a long time. And we even have a couple of movie houses that play foreign and art films.

And it is because we are getting better that a And it is because we are getting better that a possible new setback in our image is of such concern.

One of the burdens we have been carrying is the name of our airport. While others across the country are named for the cities they represent or for war heroes or aviation pioneers, ours is named for a movie star. Easterners find that hilarious; at least the Easterners I know do. Now the airport is threatening to compound that problem.

An organization called Thompson Consultants International (which is based in Miami) has done a survey of the tastes of 1,574 local air travelers along with some travel agents and chamber of commerce types. The researchers wanted to find out what facilities and goods Orange County residents wanted in their new airport terminal building.

So what did they find out? The most desirable fast food is fruit and yogurt. The facilities most frequently requested were a private membership lounge, valet parking and a barbershop. And the merchandise suggested for the gift shops was brand name and expensive.

The respondents also said that bars are old hat, and they weren’t much interested in having a drink at the airport. “Just park my car for me,” they seemed to be saying, “and give me a little yogurt and a copy of Gentlemen’s Quarterly or Harpers Bazaar to read in the VIP lounge, and I’ll be just fine.”

I read this with considerable dismay, not just because my tastes tend more to hot dogs and beer than yogurt and banana shakes, but because if the people who make such decisions go along with the survey results, we are going to have one more image problem to deal with. We will be blamed for the disappearance of traditional American values or the start of another California trend that will one day reduce our airport terminals to yuppie salons.

I don’t know how they selected the respondents for this survey, but I certainly was not asked. Neither were any of my friends--mostly, I will admit, hot dog people. But on the bright side, even the firm that conducted the study appears to be dubious about the conclusions. Thompson Consultants noted in a report accompanying its survey that it didn’t consider “reliable” the conclusion that “suggested a high degree of abstinence by travelers at John Wayne.” That is a step in the right direction and would seem to me to call into question the results of the whole survey.

Maybe that is how the members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors were thinking, when--a week after the survey has made public--they threw a bone to us hot dog and hamburger people by announcing that McDonald’s has been awarded the exclusive fast-food rights at the new airport terminal. Pizza Hut has also been invited into the central food court, and two cocktail bars are on the drawing boards.

So all is not lost. The health lobby has apparently not carried the day after all. But we have to be alert. These yogurt people don’t give up easily.