Hello Simmers,

The best of the holidays to you all!

A friend of mine was talking to my about running into people that you did not know and then finding out that you have a connection.  That brought back to me a story, very personal, about a person that I had never met before that I had a close connection with.

The story goes back to the late 90's.  I was flying the 767 out of KJFK to KSFO.  It was a nice trip to fly since we would leave KJFJ in the late afternoon and arrive in KSFO just in time for dinner and the next morning we would return to KJFK.  We could fly the trips back-to-back to save commuting back and forth to home, which in my case was about a 4 hour drive each way.

So let me tell you the story about a small world.  I'm sitting in the cockpit of the 767 just about ready to leave KJFK for our trip to the west coast.  The gate agent comes into the cockpit to tell me they are just about ready to close the front door since the plane is full.  I look out the cockpit window and see in the jetway that there are 4 TWA flight attendants looking to get a ride home after flying in from an international trip.  With a full flight, that means there will not be any chance for them to fly home on this trip.  But TWA was like a family back then and I wanted to do what I could to help them get home.  The company policy at that time was only pilots in the cockpit, but since I'm the captain I should be able to bend the rules a bit.

The cockpit of the 767 is big with 2 jump seats. The jump seat is not very nice to sit in, but better than missing the flight.  I went out on the jetway and asked who were the two senior flight attendants?  I asked the two to follow me into the cockpit and have a seat.  There was plenty of room for the suitcases and one of the flight attendants had to sit on the fold down seat and the other sat right behind me.  Off we go on our trip to San Francisco.

As we fly west the airway takes us right over the town where I live.  So I'm looking out the left window checking out my house.  The flight attendant sitting right behind me asks, "what are you looking at."  Oh I said, I'm looking at my house to see if the motorcycle gang was at my house  :D, just kidding! She said where do you live?  When I told her the name of the town she sat straight up in the seat. After a short back and forth we discovered that I live in the house she grew up in!  That's right, it's a small world after all!

A year later she returned to my house with her husband since they were attending a high school reunion.  She brought pictures of the house when she lived there many years ago.  It was great fun reminiscing about the past.  It just goes to show you that you never know when you will meet someone that has some connection to you too.

Have a great Holiday and a fun  :) time flying,

Lou