db: Déjà who?

I think it’s perfect this worldwide event is in Monroe, La., and in my now eight years of doing this gig, think this event would be a perfect fit in hundreds of small and big towns in America.

“It seems like I’ve been here before…”

Dateline: 31,000 feet above America

“It’s Déjà vu all over again.”
Yogi Berra

We live on, and within, a circle.

And within that circle, within all of us, our DNA shows that 99 percent of what is in one of us, is in all of us.

Me, and you, are a lot closer than you might think, or care to be.

The other day I was talking with a friend of mine who does math for a living, I can’t do math for anything so I trust what he tells me about adding up stuff.

“Dude, I tried to friend you on Facebook, but it said you were all filled up.” ~Him

“Oh.” ~Me.

Me, after a moment of neither of us saying a thing, “Facebook says I’m only allowed 5,000 friends on earth.”

Him, “That’s just ridiculous…”

I have learned in life that pretty much right after someone says the word, “ridiculous” I’m about a second or so away from a learning experience.

And I was.

According to math suppositions I don’t fully understand I learned this: If I somehow manage to live until I’m 80 (in the over/under category take the under on that) I will have been on this circle of ours for 29,200 days. Now, just suppose from the day I was born until the day I die I managed to average meeting five people a day then in my entire lifetime I would have interacted with 146,000 or so folks.

We have in fact 7 BILLION people living within this circle.

So, in my entire life I may only meet…0.002 percent of all of us.

You too.

0.002 percent

I don’t know math, but it seems to me at 0.002 percent, we miss a lot.

“…no straight lines make up my life…”

So, yesterday I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting on a delayed flight to the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship shindig in Monroe, La., sitting in my own strange world blissfully unaware of the 99.008 percent of the planet around me when…

“db…”

250,000 people come through the Atlanta airport a day…

“db…remember me…”

About 10,000 people an hour…

“…I’m Tim Johnston, you did a story about me last year…”

My odds on meeting someone I know in the Atlanta airport on any given day, 1 in 10,000 or so, maybe less, maybe more…I don’t do math.

“…I’m sure you don’t remember.”

And then Mr. 1 in 10,000 sits down next to me.

I’m drinking something healthy and good for me that tastes like sand. The guy looks familiar, but I take another awful sip to buy some more search my brain time.

Huh, then it comes back, oh yeah, this is Mr. 150 to 1, cool.

“Dude, are you back fishing the Nation Championship.”

“Yep, one more chance to make the Bassmaster Classic, missed it in 2015.”

I stop drinking the awful healthy stuff, and smile, my math guy doesn’t know about this B.A.S.S. Nation thing, didn’t figure in this Nation Championship gig which brings in competitors from all over the country, all over the world.

I’m thinking, this week in Monroe, La., I’m going to be bumping up that 0.002 percent number some.

Big circle, big B.A.S.S. Nation, helps cut down some on missing a lot, planet wise.

“…and all my roads have bends…”

“db, what seat are you in.”

“3C”

“No way…”

I check my boarding ticket again, yep…way.

“Says 3C”

“Dude, I’m in 3D, we are riding together.”

So, for the next almost two hours I sit next to a guy that near two years ago I sat and talked to and wrote a story about.

Truth be told, most times I only spend maybe a half hour tops doing an interview with someone, never, NEVER spend hours, hours, who has hours, not me, not the people I’m interviewing.

Unless of course you are sitting together 31,000 feet above America.

Come on board, check out what I missed the first time I interviewed this, “Remember me, Tim Johnston,” guy.

“…there’s no clear-cut beginnings…”

“You live in Montana but grew up in Southern California, how did you get to Bass fishing in SoCal.”

“Lived near a lake, actually it was called a lake but was really a pond, as I kid I would get my rod and reel and go fish for Bass on this pond in the middle of the golf course that I lived by.”

Turns out Tim is 50 years old, married, two kids, one named, “Skeeter,” yep, after the Bass boat. I text my son, “Dude I should have named you BMW 318is.”

He didn’t text back.

“I grew up wanting to be a Los Angeles fireman, went to USC Nursing school, was a EMT for awhile, worked as an EMT on helicopters, one day picked up my family and moved cross country spent three years in Boston College grad school, lived with our whole family in a tiny basement near the mass transit line.”

It was like with every sentence Tim said, my respect for him, and his family grew.

We throw the hero word around way to often anymore, but I have no problem with throwing that word at Nurses, at EMT’s, and frankly any family that will live in a basement 3,000 miles away from home in an attempt to better their lives.

“Graduated as a CRNA.”

CRNA=Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, a Master’s Degree worth of learning.

“Me and my partner are the CRNA’s for Clark Fork Valley Hospital in Plains, Mont.” Both Tim and the other guy who shares the job work 24 hours shifts shifting on and off, his partner is back at the hospital now holding things down so Tim can be out here competing.

We are an hour into the flight.

Feels like 10 minutes.

“…but I have this funny feeling…”

We sit and talk about Tim’s visit to Fenway Park to see a Red Sox game.

Talk of huge bright orange and red leaves of a New England autumn.

Talk some of fishing.

“What’s Shaw Grigsby like.”

“Umm.”

“What’s Paul Elias like.”

“Hmm, umm.”

But mainly we talk about, the B.A.S.S. Nation.

“I can’t tell you db how fortunate I feel I am to be here.”

Tim didn’t have to tell me that, you could see the emotion on his face, the face of his wife, Delane’s as well.

“Where else could you spend time and build friendships with people from all over the world in one tiny spot like Monroe, La.”

I don’t need to ask my math friend that question, I know that answer.

“…that we’ll all be together again…”

This is back-to-back years for this event to be held here in Monroe, La., last night at the yearly “Yard-Bird” dinner for the B.A.S.S. staff who work the dinner, and the service crew guys who keep the boats afloat, last night down there at the front of the table, left side, those folks live here in Monroe.

That’s Joe Dee Dycus and his family, I wrote about him the last time I was in town.

Joe, his family, his neighborhood, many, many people in this town, all have earned a seat at this table, we just didn’t have enough chairs to go around.

I think it’s perfect this worldwide event is in Monroe, La., and in my now eight years of doing this gig, think this event would be a perfect fit in hundreds of small and big towns in America.

I pay some attention to the game being played out here.

I pay much more attention to the people playing the game here.

I don’t for a moment think it was just coincidence that the Delta seating plan computer program sat Tim and I right next to each other on a flight to Monroe, La.

Not for a moment.

Know though the man driving the bus, of which we all are just passengers, know that on this trip he wanted to make a point about, 10,000-1, a point about 0.002 percent.

A point about the circle we live on, we live within.

It’s a 1 to 1 circle.

A circle made to go round and round.

Here again, back again, together again.

Last night as I went to sleep in Monroe, I checked Facebook one last time for the day, saw I was tagged in a photo, clicked to see it was of Tim and I on the plane and in the caption I read this: “Flying to Monroe what a privilege to sit next to BASS Sports Writer, Don Barone.”

1 to 1.

In fact, the privilege was all mine.

Blessed to have 146,000 of those privileges in my life.

Wish it were more.

Hope it is for you.

Glad to meet you.

“…all my life’s a circle.”
Circle

Harry Chapin

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
~Anais Nin