John Wayne Sat Next to a Scared Kid on a Flight — The Boy Never Forgot What He Said

Los Angeles, 1962. Thomas Elliot was twelve years old and flying alone for the first time. His mother had put him on the flight. His father was meeting him in Dallas. The arrangement had been made practically, without discussing the emotional content of it, because both his parents had decided he was old enough to manage. Thomas was not entirely certain he agreed. He was in the gate area at LAX at two forty-five, sitting very straight, watching everything, not visibly afraid. At two fifty-two, the man who sat down in the seat beside him said hello. He was six feet four. He had missed his earlier flight. He said it would not be Thomas's last flight. He said it the way people say things they are certain of rather than things they are hoping for. Thomas said he wasn't sure he was going to like flying. What the man said next — and what he said at the gate when boarding was called, and what he did on the plane at the moment of liftoff — Thomas told his father about at the gate in Dallas. Word for word. In order. His father listened to all of it. Then he said the man was right. He said it briefly, without elaboration, in the voice he used when he agreed with something completely.