We were late for our connecting flight and made it to the gate minutes before they closed the doors. It wasn’t our fault – our originating plane was late leaving the Houston airport, giving us less than 20 minutes to catch our connecting flight in Phoenix.

On Southwest Airlines, there’s no assigned seating, so my husband and I found ourselves in the very back of the plane and on separate rows. I sat between a middle-aged man with his iPod buds firmly planted in his ears and a young man punching away on his phone.

At least the flight would be quiet, I thought, as I settled in and took out my paperback.

After a while, though, I needed a break and decided to watch the landscape below us. We’d long left the flat lands of Texas, and mountain ranges stretched out below the plane.

The business man was sleeping, but the young man next to me was looking out the window, just like me. He was wearing a ball cap and a plain T-shirt, and he reminded me of my sons.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Portland,” he replied. “I’m meeting my dad there and we’re heading out on a trip down the coast, just the two of us.”

That was more information than I normally get on an airplane these days. Before iPods, laptops and iPads, people usually chatted with the people sitting next to them on airplanes.

Today, what’s on an electronic device is more appealing than a live human being in the seat next to us. But this young man was willing to interact with me, and so we started talking.

Over the course of the next hour, I found out Joey wasn’t some dumb Millennial. He was a college student studying business and marketing. He hailed from Las Vegas, Nev., but wanted to get away from the glitz of Vegas.

“I didn’t go far,” he said with a laugh telling me he attended school in Arizona. “But it was a good break from home.”

He told me he and some friends were at the front end of a brand-new business venture. The excitement was evident in his voice as he described their business of setting up machines to dispense ballerina shoes in casinos.

He said he always noticed the girls who worked in the casinos would walk around barefoot after their shift. They had to wear high heels while on duty, and they couldn’t wait to put on comfortable shoes.

He thought it would be a neat idea to offer soft shoes to anybody who had to stand on their feet all day, or all night long, and so he drew up a business plan, patented it and they’re now in the fine-tuning stage.

Joey was quite excited about his venture, and I marveled at his enthusiasm and willingness to embark on a business venture at the age of 23. So many young people are interested in what’s on their cell phone, what Beyonce’s up to and they haven’t a clue about what’s going on in the world.

I realized I’d sorely misjudged this young person. He had brains, ambition and a willingness to follow his dream. This summer morning, Joey took a chance on a stranger, hoping she’d listen to his dreams and perhaps see the same possibilities he saw.

That’s a big chance to take, and I was grateful he’d talked to me. The flight was over before I knew it, and I wished him well on his endeavor.

“Maybe one day I’ll see your machines in airports and casinos all over the place,” I said as we were retrieving our carry-on luggage.

“I sure hope so,” he said with a smile and wished me a good day.

Little did Joey know, my day was already good because of him.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.