Some people think airplane flights are only about going from place to place. But there’s the added value of enforced approximation with strangers you will never see again.
For example, once, when I was on my way to a health care conference, I found myself sitting next to a woman who had just that afternoon conducted an in-service on patient relations at our hospital. I, of course, recognized her but she didn’t recognize me. Interesting set-up—playing the random seatmate to a stranger who had just spent an hour telling us managers how to do our job…which, if you asked me, we were already doing pretty well. So, during the 30-minute flight to Chicago, I spoke for my fellow managers by getting her to repeat her lecture while inserting innocent sounding, challenging questions and comments. It’s always fun to ‘one up’ the out of town expert who presumes to know us and our work.
On another occasion there was a father and 10-year old son sitting in the same row as I. So, of course, I couldn’t help hear the two of them discussing a family situation. I tuned in more intensely when the boy complained that his dad was always making up rules and stuff. The father asked, “Like what?”
The boy went: “Like if I don’t clean up my room a portal will open and take me to another dimension.”
The father replied: “Well, that’s what happened to your older brother.”
The boy asked, “What brother? I don’t have an older brother.”
The father archly replied, “Exactly.”
I realized that sometimes, in the parent/child game, the parent has to use a trick or two to keep an edge.
Another time, long ago when the movie, Zorba the Greek, came out, I found myself sitting next to a woman from Athens. We chatted for a while until we came to the movie and what she thought of it. “It was fine,” she allowed “as far as it went. But it concentrated on very dark and negative elements. If you had read the book, you would know that Zorba was basically a positive life-force that balanced the evil and pain found in the story.” I read the book. She was right.
Sometimes flying in a cylindrical tube high above the earth helps us learn what is happening in the world below.
Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/
