the man from florence − 1 August, 2002
i had just spent a wonderful week with friends sea kayaking around the broken islands group off the coast of british columbia. after driving down from vancouver to seattle, i was flying back to chicago. as usual i got an aisle seat, when a very jovial middle aged man looked up at me and greeted me with a cheerful, *hello!* we started talking, it turns out that he was going home to visit his family. he was working in seattle for the next few months but got to fly back to florence every other week to see his family. he was married with two children.
one of his passions in life was cooking. he bemoaned the fact that one can not get *real* pasta in seattle even when he made it from scratch the ingredients were lacking and it didn't taste as flavorful. his eyes lit up when he talked about his children and how much he missed cooking their meals.
in mid-flight we started to fly through a lightning storm, the seat-belt sign flashed on as the plane encountered much turbulence. i began to feel uncomfortable as the turbulence became more violent. the man from florence looked at me with a big smile and the enthusiam of a child and said, *look! out the window! we can see the beautiful lightning storm. aren't we so lucky?*
after leaving the airport, i felt a bit perplexed. i couldn't believe i had shared such pleasant conversations with an arms dealer from florence. never did i imagine that an arms dealer who was doing business with the us department of defense and working for a world renowned italian firearms manufacturer would be so charming and amicable. life is full of surprises.
one of his passions in life was cooking. he bemoaned the fact that one can not get *real* pasta in seattle even when he made it from scratch the ingredients were lacking and it didn't taste as flavorful. his eyes lit up when he talked about his children and how much he missed cooking their meals.
in mid-flight we started to fly through a lightning storm, the seat-belt sign flashed on as the plane encountered much turbulence. i began to feel uncomfortable as the turbulence became more violent. the man from florence looked at me with a big smile and the enthusiam of a child and said, *look! out the window! we can see the beautiful lightning storm. aren't we so lucky?*
after leaving the airport, i felt a bit perplexed. i couldn't believe i had shared such pleasant conversations with an arms dealer from florence. never did i imagine that an arms dealer who was doing business with the us department of defense and working for a world renowned italian firearms manufacturer would be so charming and amicable. life is full of surprises.
