Flight Manifest
I've been up in Blackhawks a half dozen times, which is more than many civilians, and even many members of the military. Those of you who follow me know I've got a helicopter thing. I'm not around them enough to refer to them as “birds,” comfortably, but my heart dances every time I hear the “whomp whomp whomp” of rotor blades.
At the Payette Brewery on the edge of downtown Boise, I had a beer with my new friend, Steve. He's starting up the ProVisors business networking group in Boise. My first beer in decades. No reason to avoid alcohol, in particular, just a preference till today. We traded stories of business and life, of our passion for not being told what to do.
The Payette Brewery on a Friday afternoon has a country fair feeling about it. Lots of families, a couple of food trucks, and Chris with a really big offset smoker. He's making bone in pork butt, the kind I've set on fire before. Brisket and ribs, too. It’s a many hours project, a craft. He comes from a fine food background, and he's been cooking all his life.
Ayden’s suffering, with a smile on his face, working in one of the food trucks. It’s 100F+ again today. He won't shake my hand, because they're sweaty, but he's happy to pose in the window for me.
Penny's on her way back from other adventures. She'll be here in ten minutes, which means I've got time to jump down another rabbit hole. I find it in the back of the picnic area, where five 8x10’s of helicopter pilots killed in action are up on display. No Greater Love Aviation, a non-profit, is gathering donations for scholarships. I want to know more, but I'm not sure who's here from the organization. I look them up and start walking away when Tammi approaches. She's one of the organizers, and an active duty member of the Guard here. Her eyes open wide when I share my involvement with soldiers and veterans groups in So Cal. We recognize each other. Family.
Tammi gives me insight on the local scene and introduces me to a retired helicopter pilot, Shane, who flies for Delta now. Both Tammi and Shane were dear friends of the pilots whose pictures are up. They weren't happy with the way these men were memorialized, so they formed a non-profit to do something about it.
Tammi’s got four kids, three of them young and here with her, the fourth, a teenage girl, is “somewhere else.” She's got four thin bands on her finger, each with the nickname of one of the kids. Bug. Buck. Something else. Something else. I shake hands with her young daughter, who first reaches out with her left hand. “Always with the right,” I instruct her. She's got a good handshake. Upbringing.
Earlier in the day, Selena, our waitress, asks if I'm a photographer. The Louie the Lens shirt and camera were a giveaway. She's from Sitka, Alaska, with a stop along the way for college in Moscow, Idaho. Gave up her day job working with mentally ill people. It was making her mentally ill. We went outside and shot some photos. Her dad came to America as a young man and served in the military. Her mom lives in the Northeast.
Aaron’s a managed IT services provider. His company's here in Boise, but he lives four hours away in Idaho Falls, where the weather’s brutal. He’s slipped and fallen on the ice more than once, landing on his back and banging his head on the floor of his truck. He flew to Costa Rica for stem cell treatment, which helped, but he prefers Belize as a travel destination.
I'm still on the lookout for the white supremacists my friends in other places warned me about. I'm sure they're somewhere, I just haven't found them yet. But I did hear the most logical Biden explanation so far. It was the “in case of emergency, break glass” scenario. Oh. Well at least we're all getting along now.
Manifesting helicopter pilots and members of the Guard is one of the ways I keep my priorities straight. Reminds me of all the good people out there, who I'm finding way more of than assholes or white supremacists. I must just be lucky, I suppose, but that's me. An optimist till proven otherwise. Whistling past the graveyard, breaking the glass.
