Page 115 - NIXBOOK

I’m at an emergency medical airlift landing zone; behind me is an aid car with a trauma patient who is being stabilized for a
flight across Puget Sound to the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. In front of me is an Airlift Northwest EC-135T-2, just
landed. The guy walking across the field toward me has some kind of a significant physical deformity; he’s dragging a sideways-
turned foot. I have no idea what his problem is, but it looks like some kind of cerebral palsy gait disorder. Doesn’t really appear
to be a problem to him though; he’s wearing a flight suit and he is in fact…the pilot of the helicopter. Which made me realize
that I needed to recalibrate my brain a bit; if I had seen this guy shuffling around in a grocery store or anywhere else in public,
I would have never, ever guessed that he was in fact a very capable, professional emergency helicopter pilot.

A couple guys with paramotors (paragliders?) (paraplanes?) found a nice wide open field near the college and used it as a pretty
good runway and landing zone for their powered parachute contraptions. They had the larger versions that weren’t strapped on
their backs, their models had tricycle landing gear and a small seat. On warm summer days they’d go up once or twice a week
and putter around about a 2,0o feet up. Invariably, some well meaning but ignorant citizen would call 911, reporting “..Somebody
in a parachute looks like they’re in trouble and trying to find a place to land!” Ignorant as in, they didn’t notice the parachutes
had engines. And propellors. And they were not in trouble and not losing altitude. So stop calling everytime already.

During early morning commute hours, pre-dawn, a tree has crashed down onto the main state route going through town. No
cars are hit but one lane is completely blocked, requiring police cars and officers to alternate the traffic past the tree in the dark.
A public works crew is dispatched and they arrive to start cutting up the tree. To give them room, the police stop all the traffic
for about 10 minutes. On my end of the traffic, I go up the car at the head of line and suggest to the driver that if she wants to
turn around and take a detour that would be okay. She agrees, and the next 20 cars behind her follow. At minute number 6 of
the 10 minute closure a driver who does not want to detour around starts honking his horn for my attention. I’m a little busy
removing branches from the roadway; when we get all done I walk up to him. He suggests the police open at least one lane of
traffic. I have to explain to him that we were doing that, but then we closed it off to give the crew space to clear the tree. Driver
insisted there was room for one lane. I further explain that to to that would require two officers – one at each end of the closure
– to coordinate traffic flow and we decided it would be more efficient to help clear the tree off the road instead. Driver kept
insisting there had been room for his lane to keep going through. I then had to point out to him that all this talking was not
helping the process along at all and he could just be patient like everybody else, and the whole horn-honking thing was really
not helpful at all. I’m pretty sure he didn’t like my attitude. So that made us even, I guess.