Sometimes the Simplest Things Are the Most Important

I didn’t ride in First Class a lot during my career, but I can remember one trip, I was sitting in seat 1B. Aisle seat, very front row. Right behind the lavatory bulkhead. The lady next to me in 1A was very nice, and we traded some stories.

I can remember telling her during dinner, wow, just look at us. Sitting in an aluminum tube going 500 miles per hour, 40,000 feet off the ground. It’s 50º below zero out there. Thousands of gallons of kerosene are burning in huge cans bolted to our wings, making it all go. Yet here we sit in complete comfort, enjoying a glass of wine and a steak dinner. And just three feet away from us in that lavatory right there, a grown man is sitting on a toilet.

I said, you know, out of all the inventions that have brought us to where we are here today, the very most important one is probably that wall.