On a Delta flight from Tampa to Los Angeles via Atlanta today. Because I fly too much I am Diamond level (their top) and almost always get upgraded. Underscore almost as this time I am sitting in Coach (got upgraded from Tampa to Atlanta) the one hour leg, but this time making the long flight west in 20C. Now that is an isle, my preferred seat, with exceptional leg room...WAY more than first or business class, but with far less room laterally. Now I am not particularly wide, and thankfully my middle seat mate is trim. But how does a group of obese Americans fit in this type of seating arrangement?
The plane is packed, like sardines, as most flights are today. Seat 20A directly to my left hasn't stopped talking from takeoff until now. Unfortunately, the trim lady sitting to my left apparently is interested in the continuos babbling and it drones on and on. Adding to my enjoyment is the 14 week old sitting directly behind me who isn't awful but is 14 weeks old after all.
I am reminded of my dad's middle sister Bessie. Dad's three sisters were Dorothy or Doe as we called her, Bessie and Helen. I have many funny stories about these ladies, and if I ever retire I just might go on the comedy circuit and talk about them. I also am reminded of one of my high school buddies slightly older brothers Rodney. Now Bessie and Rodney were anything but trim. Bessie was a big lady and she use to babysit for me when I was growing up. I can still see that purse swinging from that rather large arm while she pulled a stool up to the refrigerator to forage. They say being heavy will shorten your life. Well in Bessie's case it actually extended hers.
As the true story goes, she was going to drive around America with some friends who happened to eat like she did. They decided that by adding Bessie to the group they would all be uncomfortable. So Bessie was the odd one out. She decided to see America anyway and got a Greyhound bus ticket and toured America. It wasn't until she returned to ST. Petersburg Florida that she learned that her friends had been hit by a train and all died in the crash.
Now the story about Rodney has a funnier ending, and I couldn't make this up. Rodney's younger brother by nine months, Ron was a close friend of kind, good looking and smart. Rodney on the other hand was short, fat and dumb as a box of rocks. Ron and I took a business math class together in 9th grade because we thought it would help us in life. What we didn't know was you would need to be a village idiot not to get at least 100 on every test. Ms. Foster gave bonus questions along with her simplistic test. Ron and I both got the maximum points 110 on the first one and she accused us of cheating...we were not. So she separated us and put us on opposite sides of the room. We finished the class with scores both in excess of 100...but on to Rodney.
A few years later when we were all in the neighborhood of 18 years old and the Vietnam war was in full swing, they took a bus load of us to Jacksonville for our military physical. The last one on the bus was Rodney and as he came waddling on, looked at me and said, "they wouldn't take me, they said I was obsessed"....I said, "Rodney do you mean obese"?....he responded...."THAT's the word"!!! The motto of the story is being overweight can be good for your health.
20A is STILL talking...
J. Robert Saron
President
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