“Good morning! This is your pilot speaking. It looks like it’s going to be a smooth flight up to Philadelphia this morning. However, when we get close to Philly, I’m going to ask you to make sure your seat belts are fastened. We will be flying into that hurricane that crossed over the Florida panhandle. Now just sit back and relax.”
Immediately after the pilot made that announcement the plane began to descend rapidly. Down, down, down we went. I was thinking, he just said it would be smooth and suggested we sit back and relax even though we were flying toward a hurricane. We kept descending fast (think nosedive) with no announcement as to why. This didn’t make any sense. I stuck my head out into the aisle and looked toward the front of the plane. I could see flight attendants kind of rushing around and the legs and feet of a man lying across the aisle on the floor. The rest of his body was hidden between the rows of seats.
Then the pilot finally made another announcement. “Folks, we have a medical emergency and we’re going to land in Savannah, Georgia.” Ok, now the descending made sense. But the very second he completed that announcement, the aircraft began to power up and ascend. That didn’t make sense.
A couple of minutes later, a flight attendant came down the aisle from the front of the plane. I quickly asked what was happening. She informed me that a man had passed out. They were going to land, but he said he was feeling better and could continue. I conveyed my surprise to the flight attendant that more people didn’t pass out when the pilot said we were flying into a hurricane.
The flight continued and the disturbance of a possible emergency landing sparked a conversation between the passenger seated in the same row with me. I was seated in the aisle seat and he was seated next to the window. There was nobody between us. I soon discovered that John was 82 years old, and he was flying to Philadelphia to lay the cremated remains of his wife to rest at a cemetery where they owned a niche. I offered my condolences and from there the conversation marched on. He was a very intriguing gentleman. He had a full head of thick, white hair. Hair often gets my envious attention. He also had a pleasant demeanor with a sort of permanent smile on his lips and in his eyes. He reminded me, in some odd way, of Buddy Hackett, who was an actor and comedian I saw often on TV when I was a kid.
As we conversed, what I discovered was that I was sitting next to a gem of a human being. I’d never talked to a guy like this man before or since. What got my attention was when he told me that he had spent 38 years of his life in prison. Since he was willing to talk, I naturally asked him what he had done to end up in prison. I then sadly listened to what I would call an astonishing biography.
He told me that his father was an alcoholic and his mother was blind. His father used to come home drunk and beat them both. Because of the beatings, John kept running away from home, attempting to get as far from his father as possible. However, he was always caught and brought back only to endure more beatings. There finally came a point when his father got tired of dealing with him. However, instead of just letting him go out on his own, his father had him committed to an insane asylum. The term John used was a nuthouse. As he told his story, I thought about the home I grew up in and how it was the exact opposite of what this man described. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that must have been like for a 16-year-old boy who was perfectly sane and just wanted to escape the pain of an abusive drunk being thrown into a mental institution.
After two years, John was released from the insane asylum and got a job working for his uncle. That went alright until the uncle accused him of stealing money. He didn’t tell me if he was guilty of stealing the money or not. However, his uncle called the authorities and had him arrested. He was quickly found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison. As I heard this, I wondered what kind of crime a person would have to commit today to get a 10-year prison sentence.
John went on to tell me that he served the full 10 years. During his time in prison, he stated that he of course didn’t learn anything worth knowing. He had spent a decade with thieves and con men. He said all he heard about and learned about was stealing. When he was let out of prison, they put him and another released prisoner that day on a train with a one-way ticket to Philadelphia. That sounded to me like a good riddance ride. Shortly after he and his new companion arrived in Philly, they stole a gun from a police officer and robbed a bank. They were then on the run.
I didn’t get the exact amount of time between committing the robbery and being apprehended. I’m guessing weeks, or maybe a few months, at the most. But he was caught, arrested, stood trial, and found guilty. This time he was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Again, he was locked up for the full sentence.
As we talked, I told him that I didn’t think I could handle being cooped up in a prison cell. He said, “Oh, a prison cell seems pretty big after you’ve been wet-packed.” I had never heard of this before, so I asked him what it means to be wet-packed. He said that happened when he was in the insane asylum. He would try to run away from there just like he had tried to run away from his father. I thought, “What sane person wouldn’t try to run away?” When they would catch him, they would bring him back and wet-pack him. What that meant was that they’d wrap him in bedsheets and then lower him into a tank of water where they’d leave him for a week with just his head sticking out. He said, “Oh, sometimes they’d dry-pack me too.” Now I understood the term nuthouse even better.
As I listened to him tell about his life, I sat there wondering how this guy could be sane enough, after all his experiences, to even carry on a normal conversation. I’m not sure I’d have the mental fortitude to endure what he had gone through.
As we flew on, I was curious about his wife whom he was burying. He told me that he met her after he got out of prison and that she was 13 years older than himself. That meant she was 95 when she died. I wondered if he was going to the cemetery alone. He then informed me that his son and his daughter-in-law were on this same flight and were seated up further toward the front of the plane. I immediately did some math in my head. He would have been 56 years old when he got out of prison. The woman he married was 13 years his senior. I then assumed that the son was his wife’s child from a previous marriage. So, I asked, “Your son is your wife’s son and your stepson?” He told me no and informed me that the son was his biological son. Then, with that grin, he said, “Remember … I said I was on the run for a while after that 10-year stint.”
Thankfully John’s story wasn’t over. He now told me how he maintained his sanity through the years. During his second prison sentence, the 28-year penalty, he heard the Good News and accepted Jesus Christ as His Savior. During his time in prison, he became a poet and wrote many poems. He shared a couple of them with me. When he got out of prison he ministered as an evangelist.
As the plane approached the Philadelphia airport, we flew right into those hurricane winds the pilot had predicted. From my seat, I thought the plane felt like it would probably feel to ride one of those Styrofoam airplanes that my kids played with from time to time. I also thought about how those Styrofoam airplanes generally crash onto their left side. We were seated on the left side. As the plane was bouncing up and down and blowing left and right, I said to John, “It’s getting pretty rough isn’t it”, trying to look calm. I’ll never forget his response. With much indifference, he said, “Oh, I’ve never been on a plane before. I thought it was supposed to be like this.”
Ignorance is bliss. His response was the epitome of that saying. But you know what, ignorance isn’t always bliss. If he and I wouldn’t have entered into our conversation, I would have been ignorant of what a wonderful treasure of a man was sitting next to me. A man who had a horrible life that was salvaged by our Savior. A man I plan to sit down next to, again, and talk with someday in Heaven.
Today on flights, most people either have earphones in or are sleeping or both. But if your fellow passengers seem open, you might want to strike up a conversation. If you don’t, you might miss out on some very special people. And, if you’re flying into a hurricane, that person might be the last person you get to talk to this side of Heaven.
