Encounters: To the rescue

Shortly before Christmas, I was standing in a check-in line at Dulles airport when I noticed Sam. He was checking-in a few desks down from me - but he wasn't standing in line. Sam was flying first class. He stood on the red carpet behind the ropes which are used to shield important people from hoi polloi, looking for all the world like a B-list celebrity - someone who hopes to be recognized by trying hard not to be. But Sam isn't a celebrity. He's a sixty-something professor of economics at