Leaving on a jet plane

I am doing so much better with flying. On my Thanksgiving flights, I only felt nervous when we hit turbulence. The take-offs didn't bother me much, especially on the flight from IAH to MSP - it was as smooth as buttah. I didn't cry once. (A new record!) On the return flight, the assigned plane was much much smaller, and having to crawl back to my seat on my hands-and-knees did give me a little pause. Smaller planes fly at a lower altitude and often experience higher levels of turbulence because of it. Instead of three seats on either side of aisle, there were two. Also the overhead compartments were toddler sized. Those compartments were so small that no one could carry on their carry-ons. We had to leave them outside the plane, a last minute graveyard of pink-tagged black bags. I had the foresight to grab my laptop and magazine before they wrenched the bag from my hands. Turns out I wouldn't need either item. Turns out I wouldn't have the chance to look at either item. Instead, I spent most of the ... make that ... all of the flight talking to Doug*.

Doug and I were seated in the last row - Row 20 - and on the side of the aisle that did not have a window. Every other row on this baby jet had a window, but where a window should have been, there was only nubby white plastic and a sort of pushed-out shape that could have held a window but did not. Also, in the back row, seats do not recline. Fine. Double also, in the back row, one's armrest becomes the airplane bathroom waiting area. Not so fine. Several times I found myself squeezed between a rear and a Doug place.

Doug is a large man. Doug's meaty leg was stretched where my leg should have stretched. Instead, I spent most of the flight pressed against the aisle-side armrest. He had gallantly taken the non-window seat, settled into his tight throne and held court in the sky. I mostly listened and wished desperately I could take written notes.

The task of condensing three hours spent with this strange, paradigm-shifting redneck may be beyond my writerly talents. How to capture the essence of Doug? A list? A bulleted list? A lengthy narrative? Snippets of dialogue? How about a mish-mashed combo?

My nose immediately picked up on the smell of beer when I took my seat. It wasn't long before he confirmed his pre-flight drinking. "I'm sorry but I got so wasted on Friday night that I had to have some drinks now just to calm down the headache. I was kinda hoping to catch some of the Vikings game in the airport but it don't start til once we're up in the air. But I had some beers anyway."

Some? Friday night? We flew out on Sunday. The man was practicing some kind of cellular aromatherapy on me. I do not judge, I merely observe, and then I cover my nose a little bit.

"Do you mind if I chew?" he asked me a little while later in a whisper, after leaning all the way over the armrest and seat to my ear. What could I say? (Well, I could have said no, but I didn't want to be rude.)

"Erin, here's the thing. I do not smoke. Well, I don't smoke unless I'm also drinking. That's just my rule. But I do chew a little bit. It's a bad habit. This can here's $5.00. But I do make it last. I will make this thing last a long time." And here I was hoping he'd chew it a bit and then spit it all out. No, he was going to make it last all the way to Texas. And he did.

There was a moment of considered silence after he placed the wad inside his lip, and then he turned to me and said very sincerely and pointedly (Doug has lovely eyes with feminine, lush eyelashes): "I would give all this up if I could marry the right woman."

We chatted about the Vikings. I asked him how he felt about Brett Favre joining the franchise this season. His jaw dropped: "You know who Brett Favre is?" he asked me in a stunned voice. "Seriously? You've heard of Brett Favre?" To Doug, I said yes. To myself, I said, Yeah, I live on earth. How about you?

I considered sharing that snarky thought but then thought better of extending the Favre conversation with Doug. But with you, I share my pet peeve. I HATE the way people say Favre's last name. Not sure about the linguistic roots of this consonant reversal but when people say /FAR vuh/, I cringe. It should be /Fahvr/ or something slightly French-ier.

"I hated Favre as much as the next Vikings fan," Doug intoned. "But man, he's doing great. I think it's cause he got sober. He was so drunk in Green Bay that he drove all over the roads. He's cleaned up though, and I love him."

Doug is from Minnesota but has lived in Texas for 8 years. He has a passion for both states. I suppose this shared connection is what kept me listening to Doug the duration of the flight. I too share a love for both places.

In the new year, he is going to Iraq to work for a giant conglomerate operating heavy machinery. "You've HEARD of Kellogg, Brown & Root?" he asked incredulously. Again, to myself, I said, 'Yeah, I live in Texas. KBR is a big player on the gulf coast. I've also heard of Schlumberger, AirLiquide, Exxon, Chevron, Texaco, Shell, and so forth, Doug.' I suppose that chunk o' petroleum/engineering/refinery knowledge comes from so many trips to Baytown, but still, I was starting to feel like Doug had a low threshold for being impressed. Should I tell him that I breathe through gills in my neck, Kevin-Costner-Waterworld-style?

All this talking about Vikings and beer and DWIs turned into an unlikely missionary discussion too. In Mormon lore, the plane talk is one of those familiar tales. (Remember the story of Gene R. Cook meeting Mick Jagger on a plane?) Somehow I mentioned to Doug that I don't drink alcohol, never have.

"Not even a margarita?" he asked, again incredulous. "Not - even - a - margarita? Not even a margarita? NOT even a margarita?"

(Sir, do you take me for some kind of margarita-swilling TexMex diva? The answer is no.)

"I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," I told him. "We do not drink alcohol."

"Who?"

"I am a Mormon," I shouted. The last row in a plane is very loud, which is why I shouted. But in the moment I blurted out my religious denomination, the ACs/air units took a breather and it became strangely silent. I'm sure many people heard me in this rare quiet moment and then wondered, "Why is that Mormon shouting her identity by the bathroom door?" Others may have decided to avoid using the plane facilities for fear they might encounter the shouting Mormon.

"Oh! You're the church that doesn't believe in bikinis, right?"

Huh? I shook my head perplexedly. Yeah and no. Wearing two-piece suits is commonly frowned upon, sure, but I wouldn't hold up bathing suit modesty as our defining doctrine.

"I knew a girl with really long hair and skirts," Doug said. "She could never wear a bikini. She looked so weird when we went swimming," he continued. (Considering that Doug grew up in MN like me, I doubted that she looked that weird. We aren't exactly Palm Beach up in Loon Land and much of the summer swimming that takes place happens in muddy lakes or small community pools.)

"She was probably Pentecostal if she couldn't cut her hair," I noted.
"Sorry, I've never met a Mormon before," he responded excitedly. "That is crazy. What do you believe?"

I took a deep breath and was reminded the counsel of our stake president at a recent conference: Keep it simple. Turns out I had to keep it really simple because the pilot got on the P.A. to announce the score of the Vikings game. Doug cheered. It was 0-0.

"When Jesus Christ was on the earth, he established a church," I told Doug. "The early Christians had apostles, for example. That church was eventually destroyed. There was an apostasy of belief. Over a thousand years later, Joseph Smith received a revelation and founded a church in the same pattern as the early Christian church. That is the church to which I belong," I finished with conviction.

"So no bikinis and no drinking?" Doug sounded like he was starting to get interested!

"Sometimes people know us because they have seen our full-time missionaries. Young men. White shirts and ties."

"Oh, yeah. I've seen those guys. Really nice guys. No beer?"

"No beer, Doug. But we don't need it. We have a lot of fun. I love being a member."
To this, Doug smiled and reapplied his chapstick.

Here are a few interesting tidbits I learned about Doug during the long, long flight to Houston:

* he drives a Ford F350 - this is the largest, extended-est pick-up truck around.
* he owned some ranch land in the hill country near Austin but sold it since he would be leaving the country.
* he once saw a cow drown in the mud. He helped his friend then toss that cow's carcass into a corpse pile in an empty corner of the ranch. ("The drought's been hard on us, Erin!")
* he adores Texas country music ("You ever heard of Kevin Fowler? Jackson Taylor? Jamey Johnson?" he listed. "I hate this Nashville pop. Taylor Swift ain't no Loretta," said Doug, and I wholeheartedly agreed with that statement!). He also made me listen to multiple tracks on his MP3 player. (What's the etiquette? I didn't put the ear bud IN my ear but simply held it close. The roaring of the plane's engines made it nigh unto impossible to catch much of these tunes. I simply nodded and smiled at him.)
* he wants to earn tons of money in Iraq and then open up a Texas-style bar in Minnesota. ("I'm going to serve moose burgers. They are so tasty. Have you ever tried them?" he asked. I just shook my head and kept the gagging to myself.)
* he made a fancy stars & stripes cowboy hat shortly after 9/11 and then Charlie Daniels asked Doug for the hat after a concert. Doug declined to share the hat with Mr. Daniels, country music legend, even though he went backstage in hopes of connecting with one of his idols, but now regrets hanging on to the bejeweled hat, because, as he says, "I could have made like a million dollars by now."
* he is FB friends with Roger Creager and is trying to help in Creager's efforts to save some landmark country dive in Austin ("I'll do whatever it takes," said Doug passionately).
* he likes to hand out thank you cards to vets and keeps dozens of them in his wallet. Last time he did this (Friday night), 10 vets bought him drinks as thank yous for the thank you. This is how he got painfully drunk two days before leaving Minnesota.
* his best friend in Texas - a woman - is gay.
* his best friend in Minnesota is a 55-year-old diabetic Native American who loves apple pie.
* he likes to go hunting with his Muslim buddy and enjoys learning about other parts of the world.
* he wanted Hillary Clinton to win the presidency in '08 ("She is tough and I like that in a lady!").
* he thinks the war policy in Iraq is a mistake and can't wait to talk to soldiers on the ground about their view of military policy. ("Erin, I cannot stand G.W.B," he said, sounding almost exactly and ironically like G.W.B.) 

* he once moved to California with a girlfriend because he thought the baby she had just given birth to was his, but the paternity didn't quite turn out the way she said it would and her father with whom they lived was dealing cocaine out of the back bedroom so he had to leave. He drove his Suburban back to MN alone and heartbroken. This poignant image made me acutely sad for him. This fellow was silly, yes, but genuinely kind, I could tell.
* he loves pit bulls and BBQ and Texas Longhorns. I wish I had a Target gift card for every time he 'hooked 'em'! I just gigged-'em feebly in response. "No need to be ashamed," he counseled me. "The Aggies did fine on Thursday. It wasn't an embarrassing game at least."
* he is 37, just like me. "How old are you, Erin?" he asked, as we flew over Kansas. "Thirty seven," I answered. He stared silently, and then said, "Wow. I would not have guessed that. We are the exact same age. High five!" (Can't tell/don't want to know if his silence was 'cause he thought I was drastically older or younger.)

Who are you, Doug? I wondered. I thought I had him pegged as a sloshy Vikes fan who loves beef, but it turns out that he has some depth and cannot be pigeonholed. I love finding people like this, people who have not simply fossilized into one Personality Category but instead pull from all the traits and threads life has to offer. As a liberal Mormon, I know what it means to mix-n-match.

You may be wondering why I've given just so much space to a stranger on a plane, one I'll likely never see again. I suppose it's in gratitude to the fiction muse for sharing with me this fully formed and quite original story character. I probably will meet Doug again in something I write. And when I do, I shall reapply chapstick in his honor.

In our final moments together, after the tray tables had been returned to their original upright positions, Doug asked, "Have you ever heard of the Food Network?" (As I said, he might have a low threshold for being impressed.) After I answered in the affirmative, he got a bit cocky: "I can cook better than any of them on there."

"What's your best recipe?" I asked. There better be some proof pudding to back up that kind of claim.

"My potatoes, of course," he answered quickly. "Everybody loves them."

In conclusion, just as Doug concluded his time with me, minus the giant hug he shared at baggage claim, I share his potato recipe. I would hug you, but do not yet know the html code for that gesture.

Please remember that you should also consult a doctor before embarking on a new eating program. This recipe is not a substitute for medical care.

~ Boil and mash five pounds of potatoes. Leave the skins on.
~ Cook up 3 pounds of bacon "really crispy."
~ After mashing the potatoes, crumble the bacon into the giant bowl of potatoes.
~ Stir in two pounds of shredded cheddar cheese.
~ Pour in one large bottle of ranch dressing.
~ Salt and pepper to taste.

Note: according to Doug, this recipe doesn't "need" butter.