My friend Cameron, was on a flight to SFO recently with his wife Mandy and son and was amazed to discover with his frequent flier miles upgrade he’d been seated next to fellow frequent flier Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Cameron reports the Senator, for awhile was briskly reading “THEY MARCHED INTO SUNLIGHT: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967” by David Maraniss and then just like most people with a busy schedule, slept on the plane. Said Cam,

“He must have slept for over an hour and the whole time his mouth was opened wide. I didn’t detect any drool.”

Although Cam was careful not to bother the guy, or make annoying small talk, how the Senator occupied himself for the next three hours was even more interesting…

“Although he had a legal journal in his
hand when he sat down, which by the way was completely
filled from top to bottom with very beautiful
penmanship, he never did any work during the trip and
left it in the seat back flap. Instead, he chose to
spend nearly 3 hours on his Blackberry playing a video
game. I don’t have a Blackberry so I don’t know the
game he was playing but it had a sort of paddle like
in the game of Pong and you have to knock out bricks
with the ball. As you get closer to knocking out all
the bricks, the game speeds up. Now here’s the funny
part… As the game sped up, the Senator got really
into it and his body would jerk as he was trying to
make the right moves. His leg even bumped into mine a
few times during some of the more intense moments. I
just thought that was so funny. Here’s the guy that I
voted for President of the United States sitting next
to me totally engrossed in a video game and bumping me
in the process.

So there you have it. Senator John Kerry, just a
regular guy like the rest of us. I guess the lesson
here is that I didn’t need to have a fear of my lack
of political knowledge. I would have been better off
having a knowledge of Blackberry’s, then I could have
asked him, “what level are you at” or “what’s your
high score”?

Another interesting study in human behavior.

Everyone played it pretty cool the whole trip
(it was First Class after all). But as we landed and the bell
sounded for us to get out of our seats, that’s when
everyone made the mad dash to get close to what could
possibly be their last chance to see an almost
President. The steward rushed over to tell the
senator that they had a friend in common. The lady
behind us said “welcome to San Francisco Senator”.
Someone else said, “Have a good evening Senator”. And
even Mandy and I quickly sent Aidan over to politely
ask for his autograph and to which Senator Kerry
politely obliged.

Using his own pen and in beautiful handwriting he
wrote, “Dear Aidan, Have fun in San Francisco. John
Kerry”