My name is John Chefetz. Or maybe Jay Chafetz. Or maybe neither of those things. Names aren’t important these days, even when you’re making allegations of statewide election fraud, so I fail to see why they should matter here.
Seriously, my name really is John. In fact, my full name is John Honesty Johnson, just for the record, and yes, ‘Honesty’ is literally my middle name. I got a really hard time about that at school, believe you me! (Thanks, Mum!!)
In light of recent events, I feel that I must now publish what I personally witnessed in full with my own eyes on a flight in mid October of 1980 … exactly 36 years ago today, as it happens.
I was in Europe that September to attend the Braemar Gathering along with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. No lie! Obviously, we didn’t travel or sit together, as I was only a humble lad from Australia, but I was quite near the Royal Box and within a stone’s throw of her at the time. I even kept the stone.
I will be frank with you and admit that I was on some pretty strong psychoactive medication that year, but the course ended long before my visit to America that same October, when I was flying in to a small town called Riverdale to observe the US Presidential contest between Carter and Reagan.
I’ll even be so honest with you as to point out that I was only 10 years old at the time, but that day did feature my first barrel roll in a commercial airliner, so my memory of the surrounding events is particularly strong.
I remember vividly being guided from my seat through blue velvet curtains into first class. I was on my way to visit the pilots in the cockpit! This was before 9/11, and in the 80s, when they let kids do all kinds of crazy stuff with the controls.
(You can guarantee that pretty much every time you felt ‘turbulence’ before the turn of the century, it was some cheeky kid jiggling the handle. I once hit the air-brakes so hard that everybody spilled their drink and the airline had to give everybody a free round!)
Anyway, this was my first time in the front of a real plane, and I was so excited that I barely noticed the rich American man sitting with a young woman and an even younger man who I could immediately tell was British, but I do recall that there were three of them sitting there playing with their orange-foldaway armrests before I went into the cockpit and amazed the pilots with my ‘accidental’ barrel roll.
However, when I was being escorted from the cockpit by a very cross co-pilot and a very pretty stewardess (who was so amused that she later gave me a free ice cream), only two of them were sitting there. I remember thinking at the time; ‘Perhaps the lady is composing herself in the bathroom after my amazing barrel roll.’
Then I saw it.
The rich and handsome American was giving the younger British man a set of cuff-links. I could tell the subtle way the light shone off them that they were pure gold.
Then I heard it.
The rich and handsome man said something as he closed the young British man’s fist around the gleaming cuff-links, and for as long as I live I will never forget the earnest look on the younger man’s face as he heard these words: “You were never here.”
And that is my incredible story.
You may choose to submit something under the comments about how brave I am to risk all by revealing this (barrel rolls in commercial jets were illegal, even in the 80s) but I am a humble man, so I’d prefer to only publish a small percentage of these and accept the rest of your good wishes privately. I hope you will understand.
And now, some music:
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