A Memory Regarding Crane Safety

We still don’t know where memories are stored. The brain is an odd and awe-inspiring machine. How else to explain the memory that just occurred to me, years past the experience?

I was on a plane coming back from a talk in California. Soon, a drunk man sat next to me. He was already a little sniffly, but by the time we were taxiing he was crying with real conviction.

“Why is it?” he said, tapping my shoulder.

“What?” I said.

“Why can’t I get anyone to, to…to buy into this culture of safety that I’m selling? I’m selling, but nobody’s buying. Nobody at all.”

“Where did you just come from?”

“A crane operator’s conference. And now I’m upset because I can’t get anyone to buy into this culture of safety that I’m selling.”

And all I could picture were destructive cranes, whirling in the city streets, smashing everything with wrecking balls, all because no one would listen to him.

A flight attendant made him quiet down by the time we reached cruising altitude. He cried quietly from then on, but he never stopped.