Seat 26E
Nice thing about long flights: sometimes you sit next to a 74 year-old man who just drove 52 hours straight, transporting horses cross country (“you don’t stop when you’re carrying horses, just for gas and maybe a sandwich for the road”) who’s now flying to Lihue to see his childhood friend — with whom he rode horses when they were young boys — probably for the last time, because the friend has cancer. He tells you he has three raccoons (two of whom are blind), a parrot, three cockatiel, and a few more you can’t remember. And he makes you laugh and smile the whole time, and you wish your journey together didn’t have to end so soon.