Stranger on a Plane

So over the break I went down to Florida for a few days, it was a good time I had fun, and you may get sick of the next few entries as they will most likely be all about this trip. Although before I had even gotten there I met a stranger on a plane, on my flight from Memphis to Fort Walton Breach. Row 6 seats A and B.

We didn't even talk through the first part of the flight, not until after take off did we begin a conversation. First we talked about just where we were from. Obviously I was form Iowa, he was from Lexington Kentucky originally, although had just recently moved down to Destin, Florida (ironically exactly where I was going). He had been up in Lexington visiting his ill mother, and was returning home to work, girlfriend, and normal life.

It was strange, in just an hour and some change of a flight, I learned a great deal about his life, intern he learned mine, and I even got some good ol' life advice. I won't bore you with the detail of my life I told him. He was just a stand-up guy from the country, now in his mid-thirties I'd guess. He went to college, at the University of Kentucky, although after recently visiting the campus of the Florida Gators he wishes he'd chosen differently. At this point I got some of the advise, go to college. I was already planning on this. Although the fact that he said, it's not even your major that matters, or any of the classes for that matter. They could help you if you do actually go into that field, but just having a degree is more important. He said that the most important part was becoming culture and experiencing life all by yourself. I had heard all of this before but it's from the people who are teachers, parents and principles, not some guy that you hardly know, it just made the advice seem so much more useful and sincere.

The next section of the flight was a conversation about music. We like the same things, mostly rock, but a little of everything. So, he first showed me the new head phones he'd just bought, that were amazing just as he had said, I couldn't feel them in my ears but the sound was amazing, covered the noise of the engines perfectly. Anyways, we then spent a while just looking/listening at each others' ipods, checking out the tunes and vids. It was a little weird but not nearly as awkward as it sounds, I don't know why we couldn't have just listened to our own ipods, but we didn't.

Lastly it was a little more personal. We were just chatting, about random stuff, we were talking about how we'd both been on planes since infancy and something a little more significant came up. He shared that his friend, actually buddy, that is what he called him the whole time, buddy, had been killed in a plane crash. He was just a passenger, even though his buddy was pilot. He was flying out of Lexington and the pilot screwed up and went down the wrong runway and the plane crashed and killed everyone on the plane, that's fair isn't it? It was sad, I could tell it was painful for him and also it was his best friend, although he hadn't ever said it I could tell.

I couldn't believe in such a short time I learned so much about a person and he had opened up so much to me. I kind of got the sense of the movie Forrest Gump, I just got to learn all about this person, his adventures, troubles, and just life. It was strange but he reminded me of an older version of myself. He's not a party animal, but he does stuff to unwind. He is athletic, active, and smart. He just seemed like a down to earth guy, and just is living a happy life. The funny thing is that although I really enjoyed the conversation and meeting this guy, I never even learned his name.