Buddhist Texans and Happy Endings.

My flight home form Maine could easily be described in one word: long. "How long?", you might wonder. Eleven hours long.

I don't usually fly Southwest as they rarely go anywhere I wanna' be going, and the whole cattle call seating just doesn't work for me. I don't want to arrive early and wait in line. I want to arrive and mosey on over to my seat when it's convenient for me. The reason this particular flight took so long is that it stopped three - yes, three - times before delivering me to my beloved City of Angels. I munched and slept and read through the first three legs, growing restless as the hours rolled by and my stomach grew hungry for real food and not Chex Mix.

At stop number three a new batch of passengers got on board. As I stared blankly down the aisle, a pair of eyes met mine."Oh geez", I thought, "I made eye contact; I'm doomed". And sure enough, Mr. Eye Contact disregarded the many empty rows he walked past to get to my row, where he promptly sat down.

He immediately introduced himself, with a very gentlemanly tone and slight southern accent, and got chattin'. Instead of the normal onslaught of airplane conversational questions - What do you do? Where are you from? Where are you going? - he surprised me with conversation of much greater depth - Finding new things to appreciate each and every day; dreams of making a positive difference in the world; tattoos and their meanings; exploring both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for traveling. Turned out my airplane buddy was a Buddhist from Texas - which I didn't know was possible. I was fascinated.

On the home stretch, we experienced some of the most wicked turbulence I've ever endured. (Just to put it in perspective, there were screams from nearby passengers.) Ever the gentleman, my next-seat neighbor asked if I was alright. I'm sitting there thinking, "A polite buddhist from Texas who's going to Japan to teach kids English? This is unreal!" Upon landing safely in LA - after my eleven hour trek, we exchanged contact info and agreed to keep in touch; inform each other of where our respective roads lead us.

To borrow a line from a beloved character: He was by far "the most interesting single-serving friend I've ever met".