The Wisdom of Giuseppe

“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you make the type bigger and darker?” The Italian accent was as thick as the night sky out the window of flight #652 from San Francisco to Denver, and the smile was uniquely warm. An inquisitive energy danced from his well-lined eyes.

He gestured toward my Kindle®, and said it again, “Can you make the type bigger and darker?”

“You can,” I answered, and showed him, with four flicks of my thumb just how big and dark I could make it. His eyes danced again.

“I’m Steve,” I offered.

“Giuseppe. My name is Giuseppe,” he replied, with a warm handshake and one of those smiles that sent a clear message that my life had just been impacted.

It was 5:55 PM on the last day of yet another business trip. My journey would, I hoped, in spite of the predictable January snowstorm in the Great Lakes, take me home to my beautiful wife and The Three Who Will Not Be Tamed. Giuseppe’s journey, I would learn, began long before we boarded the plane and would take him on a less predictable path, indeed.

“I’m a sailor,” he smiled. “I’ve been considering one of those,” he added, with another gesture toward my eReader. “But I didn’t know if the type could be made bigger and darker, and please, tell me, how will I get my books when I am on the ocean?”

He went on to tell me that after thirty or forty years of serving as “skipper” on “big boats” for wealthy boat owners “the insurance companies, when I turn (sic) 75, they don’t think I can be skipper – that the risks are too high.” Without a hint of resentment or sadness in his voice, he continued, “I’ve been a sailor my whole life, and now I sail my own boat.”

38 feet, in case you’re wondering. Open sea. From one side of the globe to the other -- Cabo San Lucas, Mexico back home to Sorrento, Italy. “On a clear day, I can see the island of Capri from my home,” he told me. The still-sparking eyes wandered for a moment, and I thought, almost out-loud, “you can see it from seat #3A somewhere over Colorado, too, can’t you, Giuseppe?”

On most trips like his, even the most seasoned captains go through the Panama Canal. For this journey, he would take “the long way,” around the Magellan Strait. In a 38-foot boat. On the open sea. At age 78. The “long way.”

He shared with me the sadness and regret of “not seeing his four children grow up,” yet he reveled in the fact that his two grandchildren wanted to be sailors. He told me that his wife had been on the boat “one time,” but that “she no like the boat. I try. Maybe I try too hard,” he said, matter of factly.

He was flying to visit his physicians, making sure his rugged, almost eight-decade-old human vessel was ready to captain his sleek, twin-mast sailing vessel across the world. And then, with one deck hand (two for the Magellan Strait), he would set sail.

There are moments when you know your life has changed forever. In seat # 3C, on Flight #652, I had one of those moments. I am not sure how it changed, nor why. I simply know that Giuseppe’s life intersected mine at such a time and in such a way that I will never forget, and hopefully in such a way that at some time, before it is too late, I will understand.

We exchanged e-mail addresses. “I get bored on the boat,” he shared with me, “and it is good to hear from friends.”

I get "bored on the boat," too, Giuseppe. And I am proud and lucky to be called “friend.” I hope that The Three will be luckier for our meeting, too. I’m not a sailor, but I recall that the safest passage is for those who follow the charts provided by the skippers who rode the waves before us.

Godspeed, Giuseppe. May the winds be fresh and always at your back, and may there be plenty of clear days to gaze out at the island of Capri when you arrive back home.