Odds and Ends Saturday
On hearing of the death of B.B. King, I immediately harkened
back to the early 90’s when I had the pleasure of sitting with him on a flight
from Atlanta to New York. At the time I
was working for ABC News and had an ABC News pin on my suit jacket lapel. I was actually across the aisle from him and
he must have spotted the pin since he started to ask me questions about what I
did for ABC. I explained that I handled
sales and marketing for their educational division in Europe and Asia. Somehow that intrigued him and he told one of
his handlers on the window to trade places with me.
For the next ninety minutes I sat spellbound as he talked
about all the different countries he had played in and how they were all
seeming so interested in the blues. I
suggested that perhaps they were more interested in him than the blues but he
just brushed it off and said that long after he was gone there would still be
the Mississippi blues. Much to my
amazement, we spent about fifteen minutes exchanging phrases, greetings, and
goodbyes in other languages. I read in his obit today that he had phrase books
in fifty languages so that he could engage his audience. He sure engaged his audience of one that
afternoon. The cherry on the sundae was
after we had parked at the gate he asked if I would like to retrieve Lucille
from the overhead compartment. I didn’t
wash my hands for days!!
Sometime ago an article in Premier Traveler asked readers to
write about their first flight. I did so
and sent it in and lo and behold, they published it. It is short and attached
but with luck it will help to trigger your memory of your first flight and I
hope it was as fun as mine.
Cindy returns tomorrow so it is time for me to scrub and
polish, and then I’ll clean the house!
Ciao, William
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