Awright… stop the $%^& world I wanna get off, it’s getting too small…

So I’m sitting in this little bar in Narita City, Japan (little bitty town near Narita Airport), minding my own business, drinking a beer with one of my cohorts before we go grab a bite to eat.

A bunch of pilots from a major airline come in, and set up across the bar along with some of their flight attendants. One older pilot is kinda sitting off by himself, and the rest of the folks are deferring to him. I glance over, he looks kinda familiar. Oh well, probably saw him at the airport, right?

About this time, I see a flare of a lighter, look back over, he’s lighting up a cigar; he looks over at me with a quizzical expression, like he knows me. We nod to each other and go back to what we’re doing.

About five minutes later, I look around again, he’s standing on the other side of the bar, looking at me; I know I know this sumbitch now… About this time, he starts around the bar, I get up, and we meet in the middle- He’s yelling at me, I’m yelling at him, we’re pounding each other on the back, to the amazement of his group and my cohort.

I flew with Pat in 1976-78 in the Navy, doing “fun” things, but haven’t seen him in 20 years!

So we proceed to play catch up for about 20 minutes, and his co-pilot comes over to find out if he’s going to eat. We decide to go along with them, and I gather up my cohort and off we go.

Of course, we are now the center of attention, since Pat is not known as a demonstrative individual; and as I find out, he is also an instructor Captain, and is giving a check ride on the flight out here and back on the 29th.

We start telling stories on each other (trust me, we DO have pictures), much to the amusement of all at the tables, and my cohort is just sitting there shaking his head.

After dinner, we get back to the hotel, my cohort just looks at me and says, “I don’t believe you! We’re in a bar half way round the damn world and YOU run into somebody you know. Is there ANYPLACE we can go that you don’t know somebody?”

Beats the hell outta me 🙂 But tonight made the whole trip worth it! The really funny part is, we pretty much picked up where we were 20 years ago. This time, I will NOT lose touch.