Farm Accident Digest

March 20th, 2004

I wrote this up on the plane ride home and figured I'd bury it on the weekend.

Nothing really eventful happened on any of my flights, so instead I'll tell the stories of the two best flight conversations I ever had.

[Read on if ye be that bored]

I was flying back from San Jose to Seattle several years ago. I rarely start conversations with people because I'm shy, can't think of anything to say, and generally assume no one wants to hear from me anyway. In that last, I'm always correct, at least. On this trip, the woman next to me just started talking. Turns out she was on her way back from some conference on how to be better at whatever the hell it was that she did. It involved confidence and talking to people I guess.

Quickly into the conversation, I noticed that she was a little weird. In the good way. Also, she was a little tentative about going too weird. I don't think it was because she was talking to a stranger, though. I've known a few people like this who avoid getting too creative in their conversation because they have been too well herded by others into controlling that. Well, as many of you might guess, I'm one to encourage the surreality in conversation. We kept taking what the other said further and further. Eventually, we reached the point where we had no choice but to conclude, based on all other aspects of our conversation, that Bill Gates spends all his spare time naked in a plexiglass cage flinging his shit around. Trust me, we actually built up to that. Imagine what all had to come before.

As we were walking off the plane, suddenly she stopped, turned and said to me, with a slightly horrified look, "Oh my God! I just realized other people could hear what we were saying!" To me, at least, that was part of the point.

The best time, though, was on a trip out from Seattle to St. Louis (this, obviously, before I moved to St. Louis). Somehow I finangled a first class seat. This was my first time ever in first class. Seated next to me was a man who looked to be in his late 60s or early 70s. As the flight went on, we started chatting fueled by the complimentary drinks (which he kept ordering) and the fact he was, for some reason, tickled that someone my age knew Edward Hopper painted that famous "Night Hawks" painting (he had a lapse on it that I filled in).

He was Russel Bliss, proud father of photographer Christopher Bliss. He had recently retired as a music professor at a small college (may have been a community college) on Long Island. Now a widower, he spent his free time composing music on his Mac and indulging his love of trains. In fact, on this flight he was returning from a trip that took him from New York to Chicago, then from Chicago to Seattle on the Empire Builder. He putzed around for a day and was now flying home. He said his friends and family didn't understand why he took a trip all the way to Seattle to spend less than a day there. They didn't get that the train ride was the trip as far as he was concerned.

Since this was October 2000, the election came up, especially after he asked what my degree was. He asked if I was a Republican or Democrat; I said neither, but that I leaned libertarian. At that he said, "I went to high school with some guy I think is involved in that stuff. A Murray Rothbard."

He persisted, though, on asking my opinion about George W. Bush. As it is my policy to avoid political discussions over alcohol - unless that is the point of gathering - I mumbled a non-committal, "Oh, seems like an ok guy. I don't like everything blah blah blah". Russel, a lifelong Democrat, responded forcefully, "Well I think he's a jerk!" I'd hate to hear what he thinks now.

Russel had one hell of a life. He fought in WWII as a radioman. When I thanked him for serving, he said, "Hell, I didn't do anything. By the time I got anywhere the fighting was two days done. I never had a bullet shot at me in anger during my whole time." Most important of his service, though, was he got to see Paris, now his beloved Paris, for the first time. He returned as often as possible almost every other year since, though he found the last trip extremely bittersweet without his wife. He still had to go. He said his wife would have been very disappointed in him had he quit going.

Then the flight had to end, and, as to be expected, I have heard nothing of him since. If I were to live to be 70, I think I'd like to spend those years the way he did. Then again, that's the result of an entire life well lived.

I like this category. I like knowing when to take screenshots of the really good ones... (Which are usually the ones you delete. Bastard.)

Posted By Tanya on Mar 20th, 2004 at 4:35pm

Yeah, it's a bit of a sickness on my part.

Posted By Rodya on Mar 20th, 2004 at 6:19pm

Well, I imagine this one will stay up, but I'll save it anyway just in case.

Posted By david on Mar 21st, 2004 at 6:29pm