This happened last Thursday in Parkland, WA
Memo2File: “Sir do you know why I pulled you over?”
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Comments on this entry are closed.
Perfect! I love to see good policework. You might say he did nothing but in fact he responded calmly, checked on the pilot, and helped him clear the roadway.
Keep in mind that this is not 10 miles from where the nutjob stole a cargo plane, took it for a jy ride, and crash landed it on an island near Tacoma. The nutjob to regular folks equation in the Tacoma-Seattle region is critically balanced on the nutjob side.
This pilot was not a nut, that we know of, but if his plane was working that well it makes me wonder if perhaps his fuel was critical.
Since he’s right next door to the Air Force base, I wonder if they’d have any interesting inout on the matter?
Road landings, and takeoffs, aren’t uncommon in Alaska aviation history.
A few years back (OK, a bit over 50 years back) a guy that worked for me was doing his solo cross country flight for his pilot’s licence.
He got a bit disoriented, wasn’t sure how to get back so he brought his plane down on Chena Hot Springs Road taxied along and checked the mail boxes. Then, mailing addresses where something like 16 mile Chena Hot Springs Road, 24.7 Chena Hot Springs Road, 34 mile Chena Hot Springs Road, etc.
So! He found out where he was, which direction (toward or away from town) he was going, made his way back and got his pilot’s license. Of course he didn’t feel it was necessary to tell his instructor about his touch and go on the road.
When I lived in Alaska myself and two buddies flew out of Anchorage over Cook Inlet for some salmon fishing. When our three days were up our pilot never showed up. Another plane came in to take a different group back so we asked him what happened to our pilot. He didn’t know but said he would come back and get us which he did. We were pretty unhappy when we checked in at the private terminal we flew out of three days ago. But they told us that after the pilot dropped us off he was supposed to fly South West across the inlet to Homer but he never made it. They assumed he came down somewhere in the ocean.
But just to show we all never learned the next year we flew into the middle of nowhere to go caribou hunting. Two planes, four hunters and gear. I flew in a cub piloted by a 20 year AF vet pilot. We flew at a couple thousand feet and landed beautifully on a big lake. I could see the other plane a couple thousand feet below us. A week later the other pilot came to pick us up. He too had 20 years experience but all ina Bush plane and self taught. He loaded up most of the meat from 4 caribou and three of us hunters and took off. Well, he tried to take off but couldn’t break free from the water since we were overloaded. So he quickly turned the plane around barely touching one wing to the water (I’m going through my mental process of what I do when we flip over). He gunned it full throttle to take advantage of the waves he had generated, told us all to lean forward, tilted the plane so it was on one float and proceeded to bounce wave to wave until he got some air and we were off. We flew about 100′ off the ground (the trees that far north are stunted and rarely reach 75′ in height) so he could look for game. If he saw a moose he would flip the plane onto it’s side so we could see it and considerately flipping it over to the other side as well so it was easy for all of us to see. We saw 3 moose, a small pack of wolves and a dozen caribou. Each time he did the double flip for our viewing pleasure. When we finally got to the place he was supposed to land we missed it by a mile or two. He was flying visual and so low you couldn’t see anything. But he knew when he crossed a paved road that he was in the wrong place. Anyway I almost kissed the ground when we landed but thought that might be too dramatic.
“Keep in mind that this is not 10 miles from where the nutjob stole a cargo plane, took it for a joy ride, and crash landed it on an island near Tacoma.”
Actually, he dove it into the island and was killed.
One of my friends was taking flying lessons in the mid-seventies. Came time for his first solo so the instructor gave him the usual instructions, stay below 2K, don’t go more than 5 miles from the airport, etc. 20 minutes later found him about 10 miles NE of the airport going through 14,000 over NE Cape Coral, which had miles of roads but not a single house. Of course, he didn’t know anything about carb heat so about the time he settled in to enjoy the view the engine quit. He told me later that it was very exciting but with all the empty roads he was able to get the plane on the ground with no dents. Ironically, a car pulled up and it was 2 of his good friends who were out riding around and had seen him come down. They got the plane turned around and he said about the time he had quit shaking enough that he thought he could fly the carb ice had melted and he was good to go. An easy takeoff, a low and slow flight back to the airport where he checked in and left, never to fly again!
He should have only rolled down his window enough to hand the officer his registration, insurance, and license (maybe flight plan, too). Call your lawyer. Or this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvMc-K8XHY
That pilot did a bang up job. Nailed It!
I think it’s highway 99, a well known and nasty little speed trap south of Sea Tac Airport near Seattle. I would certainly not tell the cop anything. In front of the judge I would ask if one could be charged with speeding when the tires are not on the ground. With my luck though, they would probably still get me for the wide load and no street license.