Traveler's Tales

Some days when you travel, life is full of little stories.

I got on the plane in Atlanta on Wednesday, and everyone was boarding more sluggishly than I've seen them do for a long time. So I was standing in first class waiting to get to Seat 26C, when I looked down and saw the guy in the wide blue seat holding a copy of The Shack.

"Oh," I burst out, feeling extroverted. "That's such a good book!"

He looked up at me, somewhat dazed. "It's really intense," he said. I recognized that dazed feeling from my own immersion in the story.

"Yes. It just gets better and better." I am always so tempted to spoil the plot and tell the ending, because...well, I'm just that kind of girl. I looked over and noticed that the pretty, every-hair-in-place lady in the row behind him was engrossed in our interchange.

"It's a difficult story," he added. I wondered if he had a little daughter at home. He was only about a third of the way through the book.

"You just wait," I said, unable to restrain myself. "It gets really, really good when God shows up!"

"What book is that?" The suspense had become too much for the lady in the row behind the reader.

"The Shack," I said. "You can take a look at the cover." I volunteered the guy's book.

"From your mouth to my ears," said the lady. "I'll order it."

"It came out last summer and has sold by word of mouth," I said. "It's in its second printing already."

"I got interested in it because I watched an interview with the author," said the man reading the book.

From your mouth to my ears. That comment bounced around in my brain like some things just do. A sentence or phrase hits you funny, and your brain turns it around, plays it over and over, and then draws a picture of it. It's all Husband's fault. He taught me to play with words a lot more often. From your mouth to my ears.

And that was my quality moment with the First Class Book Review group on Delta the other day. I proceeded to Seat 26C and settled in.

* * * *
Once I got to Seattle, I turned on my handheld, and it gathered up my e-mails out of the atmosphere. Such a miracle, today's technology.

I noticed that there was one e-mail from the president. Huh, I thought. I wonder which airport he's in? We'd been at the same conference for the past five days. The insurance rules are that the senior officers of our university can't fly together. Maybe he was in Denver or Salt Lake City. Or maybe home already, lucky man. Off I went to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom to get some work done while waiting for my next flight.

I e-mailed the president back, and a minute later his response popped into my e-mail. "Where are you?" I shot back, curious.

"Seattle. My flights got messed up. I bought a day pass to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom. Where are YOU?"

"I'm right here in the boardroom!"

I stood up and started peering around. There he was, standing at the other end of the boardroom, scanning the room and then waving with a grin on his face and his cell phone against his ear.

Sometimes travel serves up surprises.
* * * *
So I was sitting in the boardroom near a guy who looked to be about sixty. He had made a happy remark about finding that they were serving chicken soup and crackers in the snack area. Then, as I was working on my computer, he made a phone call. I overheard him talking about having just been in Vietnam, and my ears perked up. The man was quite garrulous.

When his call was done, I commented, "I heard you say you've been in Vietnam?"

"Yes," he said, breaking into a happy smile. "It was a wonderful trip. It was my first time back in forty years."

Turns out, he had fought in the Vietnam war, and had fallen in love with the country and people. He told me all about how he had been helping to financially support a school and built a library there. "You can do a lot," he said, and began waxing eloquent about the cheap stay and cheap beer of the past few weeks.

"Want to see pictures?" he asked.

He handed me a little photo album. Photos! Real printed photos on paper! It struck me that I'd not seen something like this in a while. There were pictures of the people, the school, the library, the Danang airport. I have never been to Vietnam, but it's close enough to the culture in which I grew up that it all looked very familiar.

"So what do you do now?" I asked.

"I'm retired," he said. "I graduated from college with a teaching degree, but then I went off to Vietnam and never used it. When I came back I drove a truck for many years. But I retired at fifty-three."

"Fifty- three!" I exclaimed. I wondered how a truck driver can retire so young.

"It was time to stop," he said. "When you start feeling like running over other people, you really ought to stop driving."

Uh. Yeah.

So now, he told me, he lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He doesn't even own a car. He lives in town, a mile from the university, and rides the bus if his destination is too far to reach by walking. His life after serving in the military consisted of "chasing women," as he put it, drinking beer, and truck driving.

"So here I am," he said, "never married, no kids, no car." I thought he looked a little sad that the family and kids part had bypassed him. But he seemed to be at peace.

It's time to stop when you feel like running over people. Sometimes a phrase bounces around in your brain, and you turn it around and examine it and play with the meaning.

Usually, when something starts bouncing like that, you need to stop and catch the truth.