Everyman Tom reminds us to put down our riveting book

NASCAR Tom isn't sure whether his order of a double Jack and Coke will stop his cough, but he's feeling bullish that its arrival "will sweeten my mood."

Actually, NASCAR Tom (the name I've given him for reasons to follow) is plenty sweet -- and as chatty as a teenage girl.

One thing is certain when you fly these days, particularly in the busy summer months: If you are hoping to finally devour that riveting book sitting on your nightstand for weeks, you will be seated next to someone like him.

"She's an incredible pack-rat," he says, referring, I quickly surmise, to his twentysomething daughter. The woman to my right smiles at me, thanks the airplane gods for her aisle seat and loses herself in a gossip rag.

"She took a new job in the Twin Cities and the moving charges were twice the estimate. Could be that the company low-balled to get the job," Tom says. He doubts it. Apparently, there aren't enough crates and barrels to contain what his youngest child has acquired. But she's a good kid.

"You teach them all you know and then you hope something sticks," he says.

Tom has a son, too, who works as an engineer.

"I do," I say.

"Well, he's a mensch."

Tom is stocky and bald, with a languid Southern drawl and a rich past that didn't escape sorrow. He served during Vietnam, then worked for NASCAR for years. He's been widowed twice and friends think he should get out there again. But Tom can't imagine getting as lucky as he did twice. Twice, he marvels.

If you fly as I do (read: cheaply), middle seats become your middle name. That means twice the likelihood of meeting someone interesting, or someone boorish, or someone like Tom, whose unguarded candor makes you think about him weeks later.

His Jack and Coke arrives. For a quiet moment, he drinks. I redirect my gaze, somewhat guiltily, into an early page of Ann Patchett's stunning "Truth & Beauty." So close.

"That's why it might be nice to find a good woman," he says.

The flight attendant stops to check on us. He'll be back, he says, to get Tom's drink money. Three times he says he'll be back. He doesn't come back.

"I did offer him my credit card, didn't I?" Tom asks. Magazine-reader smiles at him. "He's giving it to you," she says. "It's something they do sometimes." Tom looks like he just won the Powerball.The flight lands on schedule. "Do you think they'll have a place to eat at the airport?" he asks. I assure him that they will. We stand up. He's smaller than I imagined.

"I hope you don't mind me talking to you," he says. "It's just that, at home, it gets pretty lonely."

Tom pulls his bag up the jetway, then disappears into a sea of travelers.

They want to be left alone, and I get it.

But I find it surprisingly hard to refocus on my own story.