Ever meet someone famous in an unexpected setting?
Remember a single casual meeting that proved significant years later?
Ever bump into someone on the other side of the world who knows your best friend from grade school?
Here's one that seems relevant for the times:
I was coming home to the US from Germany. I had just turned 13. The pilot declared an emergency and we landed unexpectedly in Frankfurt.
I remember the landing, we bounced. The ceiling panels fell out but I was so short, they only hit the head rest.
We were instructed not to leave the boarding area under any circumstances.
The concourse was totally vacant except for armed military guards.
I had been very, very ill during my stay in Germany and was on the mend. I was hungry and saw vending machines at the end of our concourse so I slipped out just to get a chocolate bar.
I stopped to eat my chocolate in another boarding area on the way back. There were some other people there. I left an empty chair between myself and an Arab looking guy. He wore a checkered kerchief on his head. I remember that I thought it looked like a picnic table cloth.
The guards gathered around us and I was a little paniced but the man in the kerchief leaned his arm over the back of the seat toward me, smiled and asked if he could have some of my chocolate. He talked funny. Of course, I shared.
I went back to the boarding area, everyone was lined up for security screening at the gate even though no one (except me), had left the boarding area. I got strip searched. Lots of people did.
When we got back on the plane, it was a LONG time before we took off. The flight attendents kept counting and re- counting. Finally, a man was dragged off the plane and we were told he'd tried to stowe away.
The arab guy was Arafat - or so we surmized at the time.
The rest of the story may be totally unconnected but isn't the whole thing just strange?
