I Missed A Flight Thanks To Robert Redford, Plus He Took My Magazine!

Having passed through Frankfurt Airport for over a decade, I knew exactly where to catch a few hours sleep in peace, get free food or find an English-language magazine/paper to browse an hour away. This one Thursday lunchtime I bought myself Baseball Digest’s Season Preview. I wanted to see how badly my second favourite team, Toronto Blue Jays, would suffer and sat down at the counter of my regular airport bar, got a Radler (beer-lemonade mix) and began to read.

 

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a sandy haired man sit down next to me. Our eyes met, we nodded and mouthed the familiar “Hello” that strangers do from politeness. He ordered a coffee, unfolded a copy of USA Today and began reading from the back of the paper, as only true sports enthusiasts do.

I returned to the hapless Jays, who seemingly found a replacement for the departed Carlos Delgado (spoiler – they didn’t). Sipping my shandy I wondered if pitcher Miguel Batista, who formerly played for my favourite team the Montreal Expos, would come good for the Jays. (spoiler – he didn’t, plus the Expos had just been moved to Washington).

My right eye corner was working well as I saw the sandy-haired man sneaking a glance at my reading material. Fair enough, I thought, game knows game. I checked my phone, I’d have to move soon to catch my flight to Split, Croatia. Putting it back in my pocket I had a better look at him.

“Are you…..?” I asked.

“Ah, yes, I am,” he answered with a smile.

“Alan Moore,” I said, reaching out a hand, which he took and shook.

“Robert Redford,” he answered, giving me the 1000 watt smile that has only been matched, in my personal experience, by Til Schweiger. “You a baseball fan?”

“Kind of,” I replied and explained how I’d attended my first Major League game in 1996 (in Toronto) and became an Expos fan after going to games there in 1997. After my brief explainer he leaned back, looking me up and down and asked.

“Irish?” I said yes. “Me too. Where are you from?”

“Dublin,” I said and then he told me about his people and where they hailed from. He spoke of his last visit and how he loved Ireland, especially Dublin.

“I’ve walked in Dublin so often and nobody bothers you. I sat in, what’s that coffee shop?”

“Bewley’s?”

“That’s the one. People are polite and they’ve not lost their soul. You drive an hour from the city and you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.” Given both sides of my family hail from villages just over an hour from the city I was tempted to take offence.

“Sounds like you’re thinking of Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” I joked, referencing the classical 1959 movie starring Sean Connery and a bunch of leprechauns. He laughed, shook his head and sipped some coffee.

“You know what I mean.”  I did.

“What are you doing here? I hope making Spy Game 2. I’ve watched that movie over ten times!” He thanked me, said that he was just visiting friends and was headed to London for a meeting.

He asked what I did for a living, I told him I was based in Croatia, working mainly with sports and he put down his coffee cup. I desperately wanted to know the time as I would be pushing it for my flight.

“I love sports,” he said, looking from his paper to my magazine. I told him how reading the paper from back to front was a tell. He laughed again. “If I could go back and do it all over again, I’d have focused on sport.”

“Baseball?” I asked.

“Probably.” I wanted to say I needed to run and catch my flight, though how do you bail on movie royalty?

“What stopped you?” It’s an obvious question for someone who knew nothing more about the man that he was a cinematic icon. The end scene from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid I played out with my cousins and friends so many times. We’d be hiding behind the couch, or a tree, then charge, pistols blazing, at the massed Bolivian Army. Well, a bunch of cousins with their guns.

He pointed to the bottles of spirits behind the bar. I figured, that’s my out. I closed my magazine and turned to face him on my stool.

“What’s your sport?” Crap! Never ask a former athlete what their sport is, we won’t shut up.

“I played soccer and boxed. Other sports too, but those were the main ones.” I shut up as I had to leave. He looked at my face, I could say he studied it, then nodded.

“We Irish love to fight, right?” I agreed, even though I’m a total pacifist outside the ring. He told me about going to boxing matches, asked who my favourite fighter is.

“Charlie Nash.” He’d never heard of him. He told me he knew Muhammed Ali well and admired the man. I was partially listening.

“I’d love to chat more, but I’ve to go catch my flight,” I said, slipping off my barstool. He stood too and we shook hands once more. I caught him looking at my magazine and I handed it to him. “Season’s starting soon, so…”

“You sure?” He said, taking it from me and taking a peek inside.

“I’ve enough sports to deal with, I need a break,” I said unconvincingly. I just gave a multi-millionaire a pretty expensive publication and felt like a cheapskate.

“Much appreciated,” he said, shaking my hand again. He wished me safe travel and I him.

I was barely out of his sight when my walk turned into a flat out sprint to my gate. I arrived and the flight was not there.

It turned out the Croatian Airlines plane for Split had left from a different gate. Calmly they put me, 12 Croatian National Rugby Team players, 3 rugby officials and 7 other stranded travelers on a flight to Zagreb. From there we’d pick up an internal flight to Split. The whole journey I chatted with the rugby guys, whom I knew as I played the game in Croatia, with a little part of me wanting to say – I just met Robert Redford!

Even on my lonely drive home from the airport to Knin, I kept replaying the conversation. Was it really him? Did I dream it?

I awoke the following day and sat having morning coffee on the balcony. A neighbour passed by with his dog, shouting up to me that his wife had made fresh bread and would drop it over shortly. I looked at the fortress on the hill, then to my right across the river valley at trucks snaking their way down to the town. Robert Redford?

I went with a couple of colleagues for lunch and told my tale. One of them, Barbara, burst out laughing.

“You met him and you didn’t even get an autograph?”

“You had your camera, no photo. I call bs on this!” Danijel commented.

It brought back a memory of meeting Michael Palin in Marrakech a decade previous. That time I was with my college mates and they saw me shake the ex-Python’s hand, but were incredulous that I didn’t get an autograph or photograph.

After hearing of Robert Redford’s passing, I sat for a short while, immersed in that moment from 20 years ago. I spoke with him like he spoke with me. Two sports lovers at a bar counter, our shared interest bridging the age, wealth and culture gap. I remembered retelling my Dad the story, a couple of years later, as we drove from Dublin to Knin. I added that it proved what he, Dad, always said to me – That sport is the true global language.

Whenever times were tough between Dad and I, sport united us. We’d sit and discuss matches, or he’d analyse my fights. Or we’d simply sit and watch sport, no words needed. Now, when watching a fight or match I still have the reaction to call him, even though he passed away in 2013.

The other thing that connected Dad and I was cinema. While he was more a John Wayne and Clint Eastwood fan, he liked Redford and Paul Newman too. On that 2,500km drive, in 2007, we listed our favourite Redford movies: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Brubaker, The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, A Bridge Too Far, The Natural, The Sting and All The President’s Men.

After arriving in Knin we went out for food, cevapis, then came home to watch Spy Game. It was the first time Dad saw it and he remarked – “They could be father and son!”

We clinked beer bottles in agreement.

As much as I want to remember Robert Redford from our chat at an airport bar, or his acting and directing credits, today got personal. Hearing about his death put me back on the couch in Knin, watching Spy Game and clinking beer bottles with my Dad – and wanting to pick up the phone and let him know the sad news.

That silly, hopeful part of me hopes that the pair of them are sitting at a heavenly bar, talking sports. Because if he and Dad had met in Frankfurt in 2005, they’d both have missed their flights.

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