We professional pilots work very, very hard to keep the job from being exciting or thrilling. We like it to be very predictable and dull. One of my mentors used to say, "No surprises. When I'm flying I want no surprises." And that is exactly right. Surprises that get the heart pumping and adrenaline flowing can only mean that you're in a near-death experience. Typically, helicopter pilots are not adrenaline-junkies. Most of us are just the opposite.
And so we sit there as we fly along, monitoring all systems, keeping everything right in the center of "normal." This applies whether you're out in the Gulf of Mexico flying from oil platform to oil platform, or hovering over cherry trees for hours on end. If it's exciting then you're doing something wrong...or at very least you're not doing things right.
And yes, flying certainly is "fun," I won't deny that. The views are often spectacular beyond description. We get to see the planet from a perspective that few other mortals can experience. And that is truly special. But there are other things that make flying fun too.
When lifting off from the ground up into a hover, some pilots are content to allow the helicopter to lurch into the air like drunken sailor might get up from the bar floor after being cold-cocked for saying the wrong thing to the wrong guy's girlfriend. However, there is great pleasure to be had in getting the ship to lift off smoothly, so it seems to the passengers that the earth just falls gently away from the aircraft. It takes practice and finesse on the controls.
When I dry cherries I make an effort to follow this particular row at this exact altitude and this precise speed, watching the effect that my downwash is having on the trees and making sure that I'm shaking/blowing every one.
And so the pleasure...the fun, if you will...that you get from flying is often the result of doing it as well and precisely as you can.
People don't believe me when I tell them that driving for Uber is the most-fun job I've ever had. I quickly add that it's not the most highly-paying job...that should be obvious...but it truly is an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable job. I mean, what guy doesn't love getting paid to drive around?
There is a constant stream of new people getting in the car all the time. (And a fair number of repeat-riders as well!) You have to like people, of course. Doing ride-share might be miserable if you don't. Fortunately I do.
Just as with being a taxi driver, I'm a kind of ambassador of the Pensacola area. I truly love living here, and it's fun to communicate that and share my experiences with new visitors to the area...or compare notes with other locals.
But while taxi passengers were kind of guarded and sometimes standoffish, assuming that I was just another guy who couldn't do anything but be a cabdriver, Uber passengers look at me differently. It's subtle but it's there. There's a higher level of comfort and informality between ride-share passenger and driver.
When I take people out to Pensacola Beach, there is a point when you get to the top of the Bob Sikes Bridge. Suddenly you are presented with a beautiful, sweeping panorama of the barrier island and sparkling Gulf of Mexico beyond. Most of the time I'll spread my arms wide, smile and say, "THIS...is why I live here!" Nobody argues with me. I do love living where people come on vacation.
I know I've written about this before...about how much I love this Uber job. But I do. It's like this job was created just for me. I don't know how long it will last. Heck, self-driving cars might actually be right around the corner and they'll put me out of work. Who knows? But I'll enjoy it until I cannot do it anymore.
Flying was great, but ride-sharing is better. Believe it or not.
10 comments:
I can't remember if you've said but I certainly don't remember... what exactly does rain do to cherries that require helicopters to air dry them?
I think I could answer Ed’s question after being a faithful reader of your blog for so long, but I’ll let you take it.
It doesn’t surprise me at all how much you enjoy being an Uber driver. I think I would enjoy it too, and might consider it myself in retirement. I only wish my Uber and Lyft drivers had your enthusiasm and friendliness. With few exceptions, I’ve had a hard time getting them to engage.
Ed, I actually might not have explained this before in detail, so don't feel bad. Basically, Washington cherries are more like little plums. They're much different from the Maraschino cherries we get in our yummy McDonalds cherry pies.
Our Washington cherries suffer from too much rain. For one thing, they absorb water through the stem *and* the skin. Too much water will cause them to split open before they're ripe enough to pick. Too many "splits" and the packing shed might reject that whole block (a "block" being a small part of the whole orchard, which might consist of hundreds of acres).
Secondly, water can pool up where the stem goes into the cherry...what we call the "stem bowl" naturally enough. This can leave an unsightly ring and perhaps cause a "smiley" type of split in the skin right there.
Thirdly, it doesn't rain a whole lot in central Washington. Often, it will rain briefly (enough to wet the cherries) but the sun will come right back out. If water droplets linger, they can act as a little magnifying glass, burning the skin of the fruit! If you go to the grocery store and inspect a bag of cherries, you can easily tell which ones have been dried by helicopter and which have not.
Growers are VERY particular about the quality of the fruit they send to the packing plant. Needless to say, they want their cherries to look (and be) their best. When you're making $25,000 per acre (as we've been told), then there's a lot at risk.
And that's where we come in. If it rains during the day, the growers will want us airborne immediately - not always when the rain stops but often, as soon as it lets up toward the end of the rain event. But if it rains overnight, the growers go into a bit of a panic. We do not fly at night. So if the cherries have sat, wet, for hours overnight, there WILL be splits in the morning. Nothing you can do about it. Luckily (for them, not us), sunrise is around 0430 and understandably they'll want us airborne as soon as it's light enough to see.
Now Bob, about Uber. I always encourage everyone with a decent four-door car to do it, if only part-time. I hope that people have as much fun with it as I do. But you really do have to be a "people person" to get the most out of it. And not everybody is.
I tend to stay on the quiet side, if you can believe that. I take my cue from the passenger. After our basic pleasantries, I'll let the passenger dictate whether the conversation goes any further. If they do, I'll certainly do my part!
A lot of riders just want to sit in the back, put on their headphones and have a nice, quiet ride to the destination. And that's fine. Others want to engage. I can do that too! Sometimes someone will get in, clearly in a troubled frame of mine - you can always tell, right? If I ask what's wrong, I usually get back an, "I don't want to talk about it" response. Which is okay, and I don't press. However...! Sometimes Mr. I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it actually does want to talk about it. And so we do. I have heard some...interesting...stories.
To quote the late, great Jim Morrison of The Doors, people are strange. And they are endlessly fascinating. I've learned that most people simply but desperately want to be heard...to tell their story and have someone listen.
I'm that guy ;)
Thanks for that explanation. I didn't realize that cherries were so water absorbent through the stem. I'm going to be checking out the cherries the next time I go to the grocery store to see if I can spot a difference in brands.
Ed, Washington cherries are still pretty green...not quite ripe. They'll be picked starting in late July. So we won't see cherries from the Brewster, Washington area hit the grocery stores until late-July or August.
There are basically two big cherry growers. If you look on the bottom of the bag and it says "Chelan Fruit" or "Chelan Fresh," then you'll know they came from "my" part of Washington, from orchards owned (or controlled) by Gebbers Farms, which is the parent company of a bunch of subsidiaries.
Anything else, like if it says the cherries come from Selah or Prosser, Washington, then it's from Zyrkle Fruit, the parent company of a bunch of different growers. I am contracted to one of the remote Zyrkle subsidiary orchards.
It's interesting to me. Because as personally as we take responsibility for "our cherries (i.e. the blocks I dry), I still see a lot of smilies, splits and burn marks on the cherries sold at, say, Walmarts. I often wonder, "Did I dry these? Because if so, I didn't do a very good job." But then I realize that Zyrkle has thousands of acres of cherries all up and down the Okanogan and Columbia River valleys, and I dry only a small percentage of them.
Amazing the things we can learn by reading blogs (and comments)! I will never look at a cherry the same way again. I might not even complain about the price as much, either. .. which makes me think of Rainier Cherries. Have you dried those, too?
Oh Kelly, yes do we ever dry Raniers! We have to be careful with them though, because their light color readily shows burning and bruising. Bruising happens when we hover too low and too slow and it bashes the cherries at the top of the tree together. "Making cherry juice!" is what we call it. And there is no use or call for cherry juice.
Believe me, we eat a *lot* of cherries during the season. The growers let us walk right in and eat 'em off the tree if we want. But mostly we'll either go to a nearby farmstand and buy a bag of clean ones, or the growers will bring us a boxful. I'll tell ya, it's easy to get sick of cherries. Not to mention, they are extremely high in fiber...and you know what that can do to your, um, digestive system. Good thing they're only in the stores for a short time.
I do like Raniers (which are sweet!), but I prefer the darker varieties like the Sweetheart, Bing, Lapin and Chelan. There used to be only about a dozen types of cherries; now there are so many varieties that it's hard to keep track.
I was wandering through my local Walmartz today and saw one of those open-top cooler thingees with about two dozen bags of cherries. I looked, and they were from Stemilt Fruit, meaning they probably came from California, which is more southerly and so the fruit ripens earlier. Our northern Washington cherries are just little green peas on the trees right now - not quite ready for picking.
I got a bag a couple of weeks ago and wondered, after reading all this, how I manage to find them so soon. It did seem early for cherries. You answered my question... California!
I can see why Uber would be your favorite job. Everyone has a story, don't they?
That is true, Debbie! And most people have a strong need to have their story heard. Most of the time, their usual circle of friends/family has all heard it more than once. This, it often doesn't take much coaxing at all to get passengers to start talking. Pretending to be interested would be tough, on a daily basis, especially for someone who only wants to talk about themselves. Which is most people.
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