I always thought security was a joke at New York airports, and in U.S. airports to begin with. You can go through any European or Middle Eastern airport and things are a lot tougher. ↗
I think most people played both variants and regular games. It was a period when variants were very popular and there were a lot more variants being played at that time. Every week practically, it seemed someone would publish a new variant in a zine. ↗