I have to admit, I got a little excited when my eye caught glimpse of the “All the salad, breadsticks and pasta you can eat” sign hanging outside Mama Leone’s on the rotary in Newport, Rhode Island.

Monica Lane, a seasoned traveler from Newport Richey, Florida, waits at John F. Kennedy Airport as a security officer hand inspects the contents of her suitcase. A metal pitcher aroused suspicion because it looked like a grenade on the x-ray machine. Packing for air travel has changed completely since September 11, 2001.

It was only four years ago when we were pulling up to our respective residence halls. Some of us looked up with joy and excitement at the buildings that stood towering above us.

Something to ponder as the final episodes of “Friends” make their way onto NBC: Would the show have lasted as long as it did without the Ross-and-Rachel love story?

Hindsight’s easy, but “probably not” seems like a safe answer. Yet that romance, which has run through “Friends” for all of its 10 seasons, only happened because of a “lucky accident,” co-creator Marta Kauffman says.

The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)

(KRT)

NEW YORK – There was no mistaking the booing that smothered Jose Contreras as he walked off the mound Friday night _ another example of the maddening gulf between Contreras’ talent and his inability to cope with the Red Sox.