Recursive Words

The flight to America was *long* – stretching beyond nine hours as the plane few through 120 knot headwinds for much of the journey. I watched the first few episodes of “Severance” while passing the time – aided by paper cups filled with wine by the passing cabin crew.

I made friends with a pretty blonde lady sitting next to me – travelling back to Minnesota for a wedding after spending nearly twenty years living in London. As descent started, she looked scared to death so I offered my hand to grab. While descending I showed her the live aviation charts on my iPad (because I can do things like that) – reasoning that showing her where the storms were, and that we were deliberately avoiding them, might help. I think it did – although she did shake her head in incredulity that I could be so relaxed and calm.

Arriving in St Paul was made interesting by the police that met me first in passport control, and then in customs – asking where I was going, what I was visiting for, who I was working for, and so on. It turns out explaining to security staff with no sense of humour that you fly pretend aeroplanes for a hobby is really quite awkward.

After jumping in a cab, and gazing out the window at the freeway along the way – taking everything in – I arrived in St Paul and found myself agog at just about everything, and everybody.

Before I knew it we pulled up outside the hotel – a remarkable old building nestled among 1950s brick-built high-rise buildings on all sides. Originally known as “St Agatha’s Conservatory” in the late 1800s, before turning into a convent and arts academy through to the 1960s. It was *wonderful* – a peaceful, but somehow happy and hopeful place. There was a real sense of the nuns that once graced it’s halls – and traces of their past – with stone flags on the stairs polished smooth over the decades.

After dropping my bags I set out for something to eat, and happened upon a nearby sports bar with huge wrap-around TV screens, and a small army of girls running the tables. I couldn’t resist ordering their house special burger (a “Juicy Lucy”), and a beer.

I sat for a while – people watching, and noticing all the small differences between this world and my own. They were countless.

In the morning I had time to explore a little before the expo opened, so wandered toward the centre of the city of St Paul – spotting a huge regency style building towering over immaculate lawns. I couldn’t resist walking towards it – although along the way I began to notice how few people or cars there were around. I think St Paul may be the quietest, sleepiest city I’ve ever visited. It was weird – unnatural – almost like everybody had evacuated.

After reaching the towering staircases, and colonnaded exterior I realised I was looking at the state capitol buildings – and entering removed all doubt – with sweeping marble staircases, huge paintings of the civil war, and bronze busts of famous faces from the past wherever you looked.

I took SO many photos.

Along the way I noticed flags hanging in a side room, flanked by armed security, and stopped to peer through the doorway – as discreetly as possible. Before I knew it, I was being beckoned in for a better look. And that’s when I saw the name-plate and realised I was standing outside the office door of Tim Walz – governor of the state of Minnesota – the man who ran for the presidency with Kamala Harris. And he was in there.

Star struck wasn’t quite the word.

Time marched on, and I realised I had to get back to the River Center – so made my way back to the Mississippi, and without knowing it my last moments of anonymity.

A few minutes later my name was hanging around my neck via a lanyard, and I found myself sitting a coffee while a retired air force pilot emptied his life-story on me. He was kind of wonderful – charming, humble, thoughtful – and his stories were the stuff of adventure books. We almost missed the opening of the show.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. Given that this “hobby” of mine had brought me from the other side of the world to stand on a stage and talk to people following my path is still very, very surreal – but not as mad as what happened next.

People recognised me.

While sitting through the keynote presentations in the main hall, I noticed people looking in my direction from time to time, but didn’t want to admit to myself that they knew who I was – how could they? I’m just that guy that sits in the back-room at home, pretending to fly aeroplanes…

After the keynotes finished, the doors to the main expo hall were opened to the attendees for an early look at the various stands, and to meet and greet with the staff of companies present. I made me way through the crowds towards the vendors that had invited me – to introduce myself – to meet them – and find out what might be required of me throughout the weekend.

Suddenly the CEO of one of the companies turned, and shouted “JONATHAN BECKETT!” – striding towards me with a huge grin to shake my hand. A very familiar Irish voice then boomed out nearby “JONATHAN BECKETT!”, followed by its owner – a very familiar and famous YouTube personality – who arrived for a bear-hug.

It got weirder.

After smiling so much my face hurt, and making my excuses to escape being the centre of attention, I wandered over towards Microsoft, and spotted the head of both their Flight Simulator project, and the technical director of their development partner, Asobo.

I wasn’t expecting Jorg – the head of Flight Simulator to turn around, hold out his hand, and say “Hello Jonathan!”. I was in the middle of introducing myself when he cut in “of course we know who you are – we follow you!”.

I must have been stood there smiling like I had a coat-hangar in my mouth.

Moments later another very well known content creator crossed my path, and got his wife to take a picture of us together.

The rest of the weekend was much of the same. While walking the show floor, taking photos, or recording videos, random strangers kept politely accosting me – pointing at my badge, and saying words to the effect of “is it really you?” – “I’ve been following you for years!”.

The kindness, good will, and generosity I experienced throughout the weekend was life changing in a way.

I sat in the concessions area with a burger and a huge bottle of water at one point on Saturday, and before I knew it had drawn a small crowd of strangers – most of which “knew” me. I’ll never get used to that.

Like I said – the smiles, and goodwill were the thing I will never forget.

I ended up doing two stints on stage during the show – talking to audiences firstly about becoming a “content creator” in my spare time, and about my experiences at the show – given that it was my first.

I couldn’t help thanking the entire crowd for welcoming me – making me feel welcome – like one of their own – and for supporting me. When leaving the stage, a stream of people came up to take selfies, and shake hands – I ran out of conversation and just smiled.

So many of the interactions will stay with me – from the towering black guy who quietly waited before coming up to shake my hand with the best smile, to the nervous fellow brit that found me in the crowd, and struggled get over himself – I hope he realised I was as nervous as him.

While wrapping up and saying my goodbyes, the CEO of the company I was really there to support took me to one side and thanked me for coming – saying that it meant the world to have internet “Rockstars” on the stage. In a self deprecating way I’m probably too good at, I dismissed his comment – and he laughed – “you really don’t realise do you – in this world you are a Rockstar!”.

Hardly – but it’s a comment I’ll never forget 🙂

After the show on Saturday evening I went out for dinner, and pulled on an England shirt – given that the World Cup was being shown everywhere. The England shirt somehow attracted conversation from all corners of the bar – with one particular guy stopping to have the best conversation about football (soccer) with me. I wonder if he realised I know almost nothing about football?

And then later – while leaving the bar – I had quite the most bizarre interaction with anybody in my entire life. An African guy, with quite a distinct accent asked about the England shirt – and asked where I was from. I said “near Oxford originally”, and he said “where near Oxford” – I told him the name of the town I grew up, and his mouth fell open. “I used to work there – in a small restaurant!”

You can’t make it up.

The other story of the weekend was a last minute plan that fell together to meet a friend I’ve known for years – over twelve years – on the internet. She flew in from Portland, and we met up in the city.

It’s the weirdest thing – meeting people you’ve known for a long time but never met. While sitting in Rice Park in the middle of St Paul, we both remarked about the easy conversation, and how it seemed like we might have been sitting there only yesterday – or every day – together. I guess once you’ve known somebody long enough – there are no filters – no secrets – no closed books – you really do *know* each other – and it was kind of wonderful.

I’m so glad she made it – that we had time together. She listened intently about the show, and even tagged along when I was called back for the second Q&A session.

While having dinner together, she commented about “badgers” (her name for the expo attendees that were still wearing their badges) looking at me from the other end of the bar, and laughed at my apparent blindness to such things.

She also ribbed me mercilessly about a middle-aged woman that walked past us in the street. I was busy talking about something or other – and of course have a very “Hugh Grant” kind of English accent. The middle aged woman noticed, and apparently “gazed at me” as I passed. I thought those stories were made up – about American women and English accents – apparently not.

We travelled to the airport together late in the evening, and watched the “futbol” together. She educated me – she’s from Ecuador. Her flight left shortly before mine, so we hugged and said goodbyes before joining the queues, passports in hand.

The flight home on Sunday night through to Monday morning couldn’t have been more different than the flight to America. I was squashed onto the end of a row by a small asian man that insisted on man-spreading as far as possible, holding his elbows out as far as possible, talking on the phone throughout the entire safety briefing, and then coughing and sneezing repeatedly without covering his mouth or nose.

We won’t talk about him pulling his bag out of the overhead compartment while the plane was preparing to taxi to fetch a power bank either. I let him get up – I don’t think the cabin crew were pleased with him at all. A pretty girl sitting in the row in front gazed at him, then me shook her head slowly at me. I grinned, and she rolled her eyes.

I slept for part of the flight – with my head wedged against the display screen on the back of the seat in front of me. It was the only place I could go.

After making my way through Heathrow Airport I was dead on my feet, so chose the easiest and most expensive option – a taxi all the way home. Not even an Uber (which would have been half the price, but required a walk across the airport to find). I think the driver thought he had hit the jackpot.

So. Next year the expo will be in Las Vegas. I wonder if I’ll go? I wonder if I’ll like it as much as St Paul? There was something wonderful about St Paul. It confounded just about every expectation I had about America – and that I know others sometime share. In a world where the media is filled with abrasive, aggressive, loud, extrovert, capitalism obsessed mouthpieces, I discovered the story the media tells isn’t the whole story at all – not even a small part of it.

I discovered a city filled with thoughtful, kind, and welcoming people that not only had time for me, but embraced me in ways I never expected – from the waiting staff in restaurants and bars, to the strangers I met in them, to the countless show attendees that reached out just to say hello, and the friend that flew half the way across the country to spend the day with me.

Unforgettable.