intense points of passage I have always been intrigued and attracted.
crossings, squares, stations, airports ... Spaces in which people pour and crosses: symbolic places of the huge number and variety of potential matches that each of us can do in the course of his life.
Today I am in what any people working as the busiest airport in the world. The tracks' s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport are hot so high the flow of air passing through this crucial call of the airways by U.S. and worldwide.
I'm in Concourse C, the third of six terminal which is provided with this airport and I'm waiting for my connecting flight to Seattle. I agree with the position of "transit passenger " with all the other people waiting in this long hallway, and having a bit 'of time, calmly point out to my neighbors.
On my right sat an elderly gentleman who seems to have just dozed off. Beige trousers kept high by a pair of tall suspenders, red and blue striped shirt, big glasses and a tight baseball cap with the visor, the seal is perfectly horizontal. Beside him, watchful and faithful, a clear-skinned lady hoary with big blue eyes that stare at the monitor looking for some news on their plane.
a phone rings. It 's my. I respond briefly to confirm that I will be in Seattle by evening, ready for tomorrow morning to fly to Los Angeles.
putting the phone in your pocket, I realize that you have awakened the man, who now looks at me calmly.
sorry for interrupting his rest in a busy day, I apologize to him and ask him to tell of his journey.
turns out that this wonderful man of 92 named Derald and together with his wife Connie is returning to Nebraska after attending the wedding of a niece in Orlando, Florida.
Derald and Connie live in Geneva, a town of about two thousand inhabitants in southeast Nebraska.
I am fascinated by the slow speech of this peaceful man, which starts slowly, with a slight worry in his voice, telling me about his life.
Every so often a word escapes me, hiding in the recesses of the smoky dialect of Nebraska, but no matter, because this man gives me the impression of being happy to share with me this time. And that is enough.
Derald says he is an only child, "why are so spoiled " he added with a big smile. "In reality ," he confides, " I had a little sister, but unfortunately passed away at birth .
E 'born in Shickley, Nebraska, just 15 km from Geneva.
His father had a farm, and business was pretty good, so he was the first guy in the country to have a car. His father gave him the money for 5 gallons of gasoline per week: enough to get to and from school, saving miles, bringing his girlfriend around on a Saturday night, she says, laughing.
I ask him what were his dreams as a young man: "Having a farm . And marry. I've made both . He married Connie in 1938, " we have just celebrated 72 years of marriage ," he says looking at me with bright eyes and tenderly with one arm encircling her smiling lady. He tells me
a life of hard work in the fields, regardless of whether it was Saturday or Sunday, " because the earth does not care about these things " and describes in detail their house and the garden of which must be very proud: it takes care of every day and still manages to mow the grass.
Watch Connie and I says: " We have always worked together, you and I, and we have built so much. We have always been neighbors, friends, no secrets.
I am a normal person, I'm fine with others and enjoy myself in company. I never drank, I never smoked, I never gambled.
I think I lived a pretty austere.
But I'm glad "
Derald looks at me, closed her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath.
And I with him.
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