Once in 50 or so flights you sit next to.......

A person who is fascinating to talk to, not a "so nervous they can't shut up" yapper that you'd like to punch in the head...

I'm thinking back on it now, after my flight, having a PB and J with Belgian Ale at Denver Airport, very pleasant, thank you, my darling sister Kelsey for making a sammie for me at 5:30 in the morning, and to my bizarrely 'able to do' brother-in-law Paul for very early or extremely late pickups and drop offs!  Great visit with the family in Wisconsin. (Lyn, Mo, it was just a short stopover that's why you did not hear from me.... sorry!)

So I sat in the first row because I was tall they were kind enough to put me in a bulkhead seat and I happened to be next to a 6'7", 74 yr old dude in a military baseball cap with militia pins all over.....  In waiting to board, I overheard him vaguely complaining about the government this or that so I quickly reached for my headphones when I saw him sit down next to me, but they were up in my purse since i had no seat in front of me, damn!  stuck!  as he asks "so....is Denver home for you?" and I go oh god one of these...why me why me!...... but like I said, once in a blue moon you get a fascinating character that you have uncanny things in common with despite age and gender differences.... and 2 hours flew by like 10 minutes.   Many times its when you forgot or cant get your headphones quickly enough.....hmmmm....

So as we chat, this guy is a world competing skeet shooter member of the http://www.fitasc.com/  which translates to something like "Federation of Clay target shooting presented as game" which is extremely difficult skeet shooting (clay pigeons are shot from anywhere 360 degrees around them) and the competitions take him around the world, and he and his friend were returning from a Wisconsin competition to his home in Denver. 

He rode horses in rodeos and had a working ranch with Mexican vaquero cowboys for years, he's ex-special forces and volunteers with current vets with PTSD (who doesn't have PTSD after a war?) using equine therapy and teaching them (for example) to load and shoot a shotgun with one arm (if the other was blown off in the war-- taught me how to do it right there in the seat).....has two dogs, single bachelor for many years, has traveled extensively in China and southeast Asia, is obsessed with tracing HIS family history like my father is, similar age, (his sister is doing it but he is ecstatic about what she is finding out about his relatives in Utah, Colorado, the wild west, etc.....)  I say oh does she use something like Ancestry.com?  YES!!!! EXACTLY!!!  (he's old he doesn't know how this is common knowledge....)

I would say "so do you use about quail size shot for the competitions?" (Due to a recent home protection lesson from my father when he left us in charge of the farm and reviewed all our guns and ammo with me, and previous skeet shooting in college) "YES!!!!"and he replies most shotgun shells are loaded with 1.4 oz of shot but in competition we are required to use only one ounce, and I reply "So lets see, you would have the same shot radius but fewer balls in that area to hit the target?" "YES!!!!"and I return "I guess you use double barrel break action for the shotguns?" "YES!!!!"  "Is it over under or side by side?" and all these other horse comments I dropped about vaqueros and the horse types like I comment when he went to south america for some competition rodeo--oh did they ride Fresians and Andalusians and the like?" and his jaw was dropped most of the time at either my comments or what I was doing (same thing rodeo and vaqueros and volunteering to rehab horses and traveling to Asia and making jewelry) -- I love to know a tiny bit about a LOT of things....I can small talk with anyone anywhere and find something to say. and then my jaw was dropped at the next thing we had in common etc. and he said he used to make jewelry in the late 60's early 70's of silver and turquoise to sell to tourists at the gem show in Tucson when he had hair down to his butt after Vietnam, and asks "Do you ever go to the Tucson Gem Show?  and I say every year! it was quite amazing.  I was careful not to ask about the trauma of war he experienced.... he said it took about 10 years for him to recover...and that so many of his compadres were still in it, could never heal.... stories about POW's who were never told the war was over and were kept up to 10 years after the war, but all rescued eventually... how completely sickening and unimaginable to think about.

He is very into all hunting sports and mentioned that bow and arrow shooting by young women has blown up since the event of the Hunger Games books and movies, I thought that was pretty wild... he says oh yes, there are all kinds of young women winning bow/arrow competitions now, a whole new group from 13-17, beating out all the old school old timers (a la Ted Nugent I imagined in my head)  In fact he mentioned in every sport we talked about that there is some 14 year old girl prodigy who is beating everyone-- in 100 mile horseback endurance races up and down mountain ranges, shooting competitions, trap/skeet, his International competitions (some tough as nails 13 yr old Russian girl that cracks the shotgun closed so hard everyone hears and says "Oh that must be Svetlana"), bow/arrow target shooting,  horseback shooting where the girl uses two pistols-- does not even hold the reins or horn, just runs at full lope/gallop shooting walnut shells at balloon targets and winning competitions over all the men....

The great part was he was SO impressed and proud and in awe of these young women, kind of the opposite of what you might expect from a 70-something old school cowboy......

We never even exchanged names, and when the flight deplaned we simply shook hands and said it was wonderful talking with you, which it really was... and we were gone.

Anyway, it might not be as interesting to some as it was to me, but I wanted to write it down so I won't forget it.  Very special and eerily similar souls sitting together by chance and completely in tune with each other with same view of life, life experiences, spirituality, animals, human behavior, etc despite years of age separation and gender and location......what a wonderful experience.

So, What happened in YOUR life today that was good?  ( I read this in a magazine about talking to whining complainers who have it all and not one reason to be complaining.  Redirect them to the sunny side of the street....)

Bravo to 13 and 14 year old girls who have the balls to do all the major ball busting stuff he told me about, and here's to them as our next generation that will be taking care of us when WE are seniors.....

The moral is...don't sit in the corner and complain.  The world is out there happening no matter how old or young you are and you might as well join in!  (Now I'm hearing Fred play Robin's theme song when she goes off on her personal opinions on the show... ha ha ha)