I was flying home from Las Vegas in the first-class section
of Omni Air International yesterday and made a remarkable discovery. Of the 20
seats in first class, 18 were filled with seniors older than I am.
The wheelchair-bound were loaded first, and by the time they
called for first class and we were able to board, all but four of the section’s
seats were occupied. That’s a lot of old folks and others traveling with them.
That was a lot of old folks.
A very senior couple sat behind my brother-in-law and me –
an 89-year-old man (I know his age because I heard him enter the “Oldest Person
On Board” contest) and his slightly younger wife, the same couple going to
Vegas and returning home to Honolulu. She was jibber-jabbering through both
flights, from take-off to landing. He kept answering with a gruff “Huh?”
They each went to the toilet four times both ways, grabbing the
back of my seat for balance and jostling me out of whatever airplane-drone daze
I was in. The elderly man kept hacking and clearing his throat, belching up
lots of gas, and coughing up what I presume was handfuls of greenish-yellow
phlegm. And no, I didn’t turn around and look.
It was pretty disgusting, and I knew I’d never forget this
flight to and from Vegas.
But you know what? Yesterday was Memorial Day holiday on the
flight home, and I happened to notice he was wearing a jacket that said
"Iwo Jima" on the back. The man was a Navy veteran of World War II
and had been there when the Navy transported U.S. Army troops to Iwo Jima. I immediately
banished all irritating thoughts out of my head and changed my attitude
completely.
As we were deplaning, I caught his eye and silently mouthed “Thank
you.”
God bless his heart.
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