Famous people are human too

I sat down on the plane on Friday a little disheveled and quite hungry. Thankfully, I had purchased a salad from Green Leafe before I hopped on the plane... too bad the dressing had completely spilled out into the bag by the time I pulled it out to eat.

I was in the middle seat between to full-grown, not-tiny men, which made my little claustrophobic self be a little on edge. You know what happens when I'm on edge... I try to make light of the situation and small talk with others. So I began this hour long conversation with the man in 17C. He was reading up on his new scuba diving Gekko watch, and so I asked where he was scuba diving and began talking about travel in general. He talked about all these countries he'd been to with work (predominately African), and I began to wonder what line of work this man was in. I could tell by his comments (although very humble), that he seemed to be someone rather important. He gave me his name on a napkin with the name of the best Ethiopian restaurant he recommended in the DC area, which he said was a favorite of his friend who was ambassador to Ethiopia for many years.

He was a very gentle man with kind eyes, and he seemed to be genuinely interested in my little life. Little did I know that he's known around the world as being anything but gentle.To me, he will always be the nice man in 17C, but for you... his name is Cofer Black.

Would you have recognized him? He spent 30 years in Africa and South Asia as a CIA agent, and he led the search for Osama Bin Laden after the attack on 9/11. Most people would recognize him for his association with BlackWater USA, the Black part is from his name.

I think he was happy to have a normal conversation with a person who knew nothing of his fame. He could just be normal. I like to think that's what his wink meant when we parted ways at the end of the journey.