The Whistler

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Forgot to mention today's colorful character - The Whistler.

We took off from ABQ and got to cruising altitude. I was chatting with the woman in the seat next to me about destinations - she was on a freebie frequent flyer mile trip from ABQ to Vancouver, Washington that was taking close to 9 hours, what with the stops in San Francisco and Medford, Oregon. By my calculations, I'd be close to China before she got home.

As we were all settling into our routines, someone started whistling. Loudly. And it was "The Streets of Laredo to boot. I figured it was Matt who grew up on the border and so I turned around to tell him to can it. It wasn't Matt, it was the guy across the aisle.

As if the whistling wasn't bad enough, he decided to start singing. I never did figure out what the lyrics were, because I popped on my headphones, turned on the noise cancellation and cranked up Johann S. I checked on The Whistler from time to time and watched as he filled the empty seat next to him with giant balls of wadded up newspaper, perhaps he was trying to pack himself in lest there be a bumpy landing. At one point, he was just staring out the window, pounding his left hand with his right fist.

As we prepared to land, "The Streets of Laredo" started again. And after leaving the plane, we last saw The Whistler hustling down the concourse towards a rendevous, no doubt, with Rose and a quick game of two card Monte.

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