Was he a rebel? A loner? No, my friends, he was much more than that. He was a man who heard the call to of fame and leaped out of the clutches of obscurity, answering the call, as did Whitman, with a barbaric “YALP”! A lesser man would have yielded to the pilot’s announcement of “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now number one for take-off.”. But lesser men would never know the sweet taste of recognition, afforded only to those who catch the attention of nearly 200 aboard an MD-88.
A meaningless gesture? NO! Our hero had a need. A need to get a blanket from the overhead storage, where it waited until a time it would be used. Only now, after a flight attendant unbuckled herself and rushed forward 14 rows, grabbing the man and instructing him to be seated, can we appreciate the magnitude of this man’s kahoonahs. Gentlemen, I ask you to be not ashamed. As we can surely surmise that god does not put this potential in all of us, for we would truly be a race of gods! Ladies, judge not your men in futile comparison to our hero, a man among men, this knight in wrangler jeans and long sleeve Op t-shirt.
I give you Russell B. Hobbson. A shoe salesman aboard flight 650 to Pittsburgh from Atlanta, where he had spent the week bridled in a seminar entitled, “Creative Lacing – Make Those Strings Sing!” “Hobbs”, as he was called by those privileged to know him, unbuckled and raised up a full seven seconds after the pilot’s warning, to fill a simple need for a blanket. And now, by a silent show of hands, how many of us would be even as bold as to retrieve the article as the plane taxied toward the runway. I need not take count! We can only guess that Hobbs took little time in his career to rise from associate to assistant manager of the third largest shoe retailer in the Slippery Rock area.
Now as the flight attendant sits grumbling, we can safely assume she will, in the future, sit in the Delta Lounge and tell her tale to doubting ears. Certainly, liberties will be taken by passers-on of the story as it is handed down through generations. But for those of us lucky enough to have been among the nearly 200 who bore witness, we need not such embellishment. The vast majority of us must be content to live as ants – surviving by instincts with little hope to make such a statement with our actions. We must accept that our place in life may well be defined by our own needs and our efforts to fulfill them. Most of us will not have a monument to bring recognition. Dust in the Wind.
And so, to the lady who rushes her four-year-old daughter to the lavatory during final approach – nice try! To the man with four carry-on bags – who cares? You will both be forgotten as surely as the amenities list. But the memory of Hobbs – the man who held up the take-off of a fully packed MD-88 at a major hub on a Friday evening, to fill his need for a blanket, will surely live on!
