Howdy. Last Thursday, I was standing in line at the Fred Meyer’s, when the person in front of me asked for a price check on cheap plastic hangers. Little did she know that she had trapped herself into dealing with harassment from “that guy from Kansas.” I told her she was making me late for an appointment. I told people who approached our line that if they were in a hurry they should get in another line. “Someone needed a price check”, I told them, gesturing at the poor girl in front of me. By the time the price of hangers had finally been determined, I had learned about the weekly open mic night at the Alaskan Hotel bar in downtown Juneau. Sometimes it pays off to be a complete bastard.
Eric and I felt that we had to see what an open mic night looks like in Juneau, so we hopped in the Maroon Monstrosity and set a course for Downtown. The bar had a great atmosphere. It felt like a sea side bar in 19th Century England. There was a guy whose glasses, the temples of which were hidden under a bandana on his head, were so large that the lenses touched his bushy handlebar mustache when he drank his beer. There was a paintbrush in his back pocket and he was wasted. I imagined his ancestors to be the only pirates in the Gulf of Alaska.
Shortly after we’d found a table, a girl pulled up a chair and asked for our friendship. She said she was from Sitka and that she had just finished an 8 month prison sentence for selling drugs there. I admired her courage and honesty. It was right about then that I was called to the stage. I didn’t say much as I got up, and I assumed that she and Eric would keep talking. I played a few songs for the ambivalent crowd, and when I got back to the table, Eric told me the girl had left, practically in tears because he’d stopped talking to her when I started playing. We both felt bad. She seemed like a decent person who’d just made a couple bad decisions and really needed some friends.
I met another guy who could use some friends the next morning when I was invited to take a flight in one of Alaska Seaplanes’ DeHaviland Beavers. Alaska Seaplanes is our neighbor at the airport and they are kind enough to let pilots from my company ride along from time to time. That morning they were making a run to drop off supplies at an abandoned logging camp in Hobart Bay. I learned from Bill, the pilot, that the logging company pays a guy to stay out there and keep an eye on things. A guy. All alone with his rottweiller and the bears. In a place so remote, his groceries had to be delivered by float plane. What a character! You can’t beat his view though, which looks out from Hobart bay on the snowy mountains which line Stephen’s Passage.
I, along with the other new guys and the chief pilot, flew all over Southeast Alaska yesterday for training. We stopped in Sitka for lunch, and sat by the windows looking out on the bay and Mount Edgecumbe, the local volcano. While we were waiting for our burgers and fried halibut (fresh and delicious!), we noticed a whale blowing in the bay. Good stuff.
We finished ground school this afternoon and I guess we’ll start the check rides tomorrow after our last training flight. After that, there’s a short period of Initial Operating Experience and then they turn us loose... I can’t wait!!
